


the poet's wish

by limerental



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Destiny made them do it, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Femdom, Fuckbuddies, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships, except also screw destiny, excessive bantering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 100,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24126805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limerental/pseuds/limerental
Summary: “Did you really have to fuck the mage?” growled Geralt, who had gotten more than an eyeful from the manor window.“Yes, I really did,” said Jaskier. “Whew boy, but I am ready to get the fuck out of this town and far, far away immediately and at once. Glad to be alive and still in possession of all my bits and know that they function butwhew.”--The one where Jaskier has a near-death experience, makes a wish, and inexplicably has a lot of amazing but ill-advised sex in a crumbling manor house with a sexy but insane sorceress. And then, keeps on having it. It's almost as if the universe is drawing them ceaselessly back together or something. Which would all be very romantic if not for the fact that they viscerally hate one another. Until, of course, they don't.Or an exactly 100k yennskier enemies to lovers mutual pining slow burn
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 150
Kudos: 353





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> yennskier deserved a 100k slow burn enemies to lovers fic and unfortunately i'm the one who's gotta do it. this fic is complete as of august 13, 2020. and exactly 100k for flexing reasons
> 
>  **content warning:** nothing about the relationship depicted at the start of this fic is anything close to resembling healthy, sane, or safe. kink is un-negotiated, consent is dubious, and no boundaries are established or respected. almost entirely on jaskier's part. a fair bit of jaskier's early thoughts and conversations about/with yennefer could be interpreted as misogynistic (there were attempts to avoid and subvert this but the potential to be read that way is still there). additional, more specific warnings will likely be added in chapter notes as the fic goes on.

“Make your wish! Do it! Now!” howled the witch in the manor house before all of it began.

And Jaskier did.

* * *

It fell quiet in the room, the unholy wind dying down to a whisper.

“The djinn,” slurred the dark-haired woman, her fingers twitching over the ruined amphora on her stomach. “Where did it go?”

Jaskier, still curled prone against the wall, twitched up his tattered sleeve to stare at the third, ugly slash across his bared forearm.

“Maybe it’s--”

The rafters creaked, and the woman’s eyes rolled back to look up at the source of the ominous groaning.

Jaskier thought _by every god, this whole place better not come down._

And it promptly did just that.

* * *

His ears popped, and the world compressed around him and dimmed, then sprung back into brightness. He lay sprawled on his back, staring up at a decidedly intact ceiling.

Beside him, the dark-haired woman lay in perfect stillness, her eyes closed. Jaskier took a moment simply to look at her, his breath slowing and heart rate fumbling back to normal. He could admit she looked quite fetching when not hollering obscenities at him, chanting foul incantations, or otherwise half-possessed by an infernal entity.

Perhaps that was an odd thing to notice this soon after a near death experience, but Jaskier had eyes. And something of a long track record of racing full-tilt toward things that could get him killed in potentially messy and brutal ways.

He reached a shaking hand to brush her dark curls from her face. At the first touch of his fingers against her skin, her violet eyes flew open.

He yelped and pulled his hand back as though burned.

“Ah,” he said, “Not dead then.”

“Unfortunately not,” she said, voice raspy from her earlier demonic hollering. “Should have left you up there.”

“I meant you. Thought you were toast.”

She snorted.

“A creature such as that could not have killed me,” she said, and then swore under her breath and closed her eyes again. “I almost fucking had it.”

“What exactly was it that you ‘almost had’?”

Jaskier steadfastly did not wilt under her glare.

“None of your business.”

“Oh, but it was my business five minutes ago when you wanted me to make a wish that fucking badly, huh?”

She rolled up on her elbow to look at him. A sheen of sweat still glistened on her face and upper body, and Jaskier found he could only meet her violet gaze for so long before he had to look off at the ceiling.

Still reassuringly un-collapsed. That was nice.

“What did you wish for?” she asked.

He twiddled his thumbs, arms flattened across his chest. Very pointedly did not look at her.

“None of your business,” he repeated.

She smacked him in the arm. Seemed to get some satisfaction out of doing so and did it again.

A long time later, though he returned to that moment again and again, Jaskier could never quite iron out what strange atmospheric shift led to the sequence of events that happened next.

One moment, they looked at one another, disheveled and still a little out of breath on the floor of the crumbling manor house.

The next, the dark-haired woman was kissing him.

He tasted blood, couldn’t say if it was from her mouth or his, and something sharper and earthy like ozone. It was not the most pleasant kiss he had ever experienced. Too fast, too insistent, and the both of them sloppy with fatigue.

But nevertheless, it seemed like the only logical thing in the whole world to be doing at that moment.

She hitched a leg over his thighs as he fumbled with the fastenings of his breeches, and he cursed his penchant for fashionable high waistlines as he struggled to free himself.

Suddenly, she was rocking down onto his cock, sweat-slick legs trembling, and his hips were driving up to meet her, his fingers clinging white-knuckled to her waist, his head thunking back against the floorboards.

For all their shared exhaustion, the pair of them made a pretty enthusiastic go of it, if Jaskier did say so himself.

* * *

“Did you really have to fuck the mage?” growled Geralt, who had gotten more than an eyeful from the manor window.

“Yes, I really did,” said Jaskier. “Whew boy, but I am ready to get the fuck out of this town and far, far away immediately and at once. Glad to be alive and still in possession of all my bits and know that they function but _whew_.”

They strode together across the sunlit yard, Roach collected from the mayor’s stable. She mouthed at her bit in ornery distaste at having been left there in the first place, and Geralt ran a soothing hand down her muzzle before mounting and starting at an easy pace down the tree-lined road.

By his telling, Geralt had only narrowly escaped from certain death himself in some stinking dungeon, spared only by a surprising show of bravery from Chireadan who had slung the chains that bound his wrists around the neck of the guard intent on beating the life out of the Witcher. Jaskier would have to extract the rest of the story from him later.

Ah, how good it was to be not dead on such a handsome afternoon.

Especially good to be turning their backs on a certain mage, the sun warm on their faces.

It was after several rounds of passionate and excessive ardour on the floor of the manor house that said mage had told him to piss off and forget about the whole thing. Or else. That she spoke through the shivers of her third orgasm dulled some of her conviction, but he had scarpered anyway.

No sense pushing his luck.

His luck had already, besides the truly exquisite sex, been pushed fairly close to the breaking point.

For one, he was busy mourning the loss of a very nice and very expensive doublet, which Geralt had been unwilling to risk attempting to recover from the upper reaches of the crumbling building.

At some point, perhaps when the roof came down or during the rather vigorous exercise he had gotten up to afterward, he had lost the heel off of one of his boots. He surely looked a right mess hobbling along next to Geralt’s mare, having had no opportunity to change out of his ruined and bloodied undershirt, his hair standing on end and clothing rumpled. He looked, no doubt, like someone had either throttled him within an inch of his life or had a lot of really zealous, aggressive sex with him on the floor of a partially destroyed building. Or both.

Additionally, he suffered from numerous aches and pains, some of which were unrelated to the marvelously athletic dalliance that had just occurred.

And he was pretty sure he had a splinter somewhere most unpleasant.

So, not so great in the luck department, as far as those things went.

“Didn’t think you’d be her type,” said Geralt, and Jaskier scoffed.

“I am everyone’s type,” he said.

Which wasn’t true.

After all these years riddled with coy seduction attempts and tantalizing flirtations that stopped just short of bodily flinging himself into the man’s arms, it could safely be said that he wasn’t Geralt’s. Jaskier had made ample peace with that.

“You’re not Yennefer’s type,” said Geralt.

“Who?” asked Jaskier.

Geralt frowned down at him. Ah. That was his judgey face. Jaskier did not love the judgey face, but by now, he was proud to say that he was mostly immune.

“That’s-- Jaskier, that’s her fucking name.”

“Oh,” said Jaskier. “Oi, well quit judging me, would you? When was I supposed to ask her name? ‘Oh pardon me, ma’am, could you please interrupt your attempts on my life and cock to kindly introduce yourself? Could that mayhaps occur before the truly enlightening amount of sex we are about to have?’”

Geralt grunted.

And that was the end of the conversation. And the end of the whole messy affair, as far as Jaskier was concerned.

Good riddance to Yennefer and good riddance to fucking Rinde.

“Well,” he said with all the smugness of a man who did not know his life was about to go significantly awry. “At least neither of us ever have to see her again for as long as we both shall live.”

* * *

Not quite a month had passed before Jaskier ran into the mage in a well-to-do tavern very far away from Rinde indeed.

The woman who strode into the establishment, her dark hair curled into neat ringlets and traveling cloak swishing dramatically around her imposing figure, did not spot him at first tucked into a booth along the wall.

And then, her violet eyes dragged over the crowd and held on him.

“Fuck,” he said into his mug of watered down ale.

And that’s exactly what they did.


	2. part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** this chapter contains explicit sex with varying levels of dubious consent and unnegotiated kink. threats of bodily harm, non-consensual mind reading, a lot of hair pulling, not wholly consensual breathplay, orgasm denial as punishment, threats of testicular harm, general threats of "oh my god i'm going to kill you, you stupid bastard" and that's just the dynamic, babes

1

“Oh, don’t you ever shut up?” barked Yennefer as she rolled free of him, breathing heavily.

“Not as such,” groaned Jaskier in a delightful post-orgasm haze. “You’ll have to try harder next time if you want me quiet.”

“Next time? Who said there’d be a next time?”

Jaskier cracked open an eye to look at her lying on her back beside him in the bed, her dark hair spread across the pillows and her own eyes closed. Candlelight lent a warm glow to her bare body, and he took the time to look his fill.

A truly marvelous figure. Skin the color of rich honey. Long, slender limbs dusted in dark hair. The curve of a narrow waist that seemed perfectly fitted to the grasp of his palms. And oh, there was no end to the praise he could lavish on her full breasts, rising and falling as her breath settled.

“Well, there wasn’t meant to be a next time last time, but now there’s been a this time so I’m assuming that next time will be in-- oh, give me twenty. That seems like enough--”

“Say ‘time’ again, I dare you.”

“A long enough interval. A suitable duration of--”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Rather than do so, Jaskier began to hum a jaunty tune he had heard in the tavern earlier, settling back into the unreasonably comfortable bed. The mattress in Yennefer’s rented rooms was far more plush and the linens more fine than anything he could afford at the moment.

“Fucking a mage has its perks,” he mumbled aloud.

“You are _not_ fucking me,” said the mage and rose from the bed to tug on a thin shift that didn’t obscure much of anything. She pulled a demijohn of spirits down from a shelf along the wall and poured herself a glass, not bothering to offer any to the man in her bed.

“Well, what would you call this, then?”

“We have fucked,” said Yennefer, swirling the spirits in her glass. “Past tense.”

“Several times. With great vigor.”

“And we will not be doing so again.”

“But whyever not?” Jaskier whined. He did not obscure the lecherous rake of his eyes down her body, the silhouette of her figure shadowed beneath the translucent shift as the candlelight flickered.

“Because,” said Yennefer. “You are the single most irritating human being I have ever had the displeasure of bedding throughout my many long years.”

“Ah but you have bedded me,” said Jaskier, wagging his finger. “And I’m only partly human. My mother has elven blood.”

“All the worse, then. At least when dealing with profoundly irksome humans, I can be satisfied that their death will come well before mine. And that they’ll die wretched and ugly, marred by wrinkles and crippled by arthritis. Pity that I cannot have that satisfaction in your case.”

“That’s an appalling thing to say,” said Jaskier. Yennefer shrugged.

“If you’re looking for sweet words and whispered courtesies, find yourself some comely maiden to bed. I will not refrain from honesty to appease the sensibilities of a man. Especially not a man like yourself. Better that my words be found appalling.”

“Oh, trust me, I would not be so deluded as to think you capable of sweet nothings spoken in dulcet tones.”

“But you would be so deluded as to assume you know me well enough to make such a judgment,” said Yennefer.

“I know plenty,” huffed Jaskier, only to remember that he actually knew very, very little about the woman that settled into a high-backed chair before him.

“Oh really?” Yennefer crossed her slender legs, and Jaskier found his eyes helplessly drawn to their appealing length. Even her bare feet were unfairly pretty. Not a toe out of place. A dainty curve to the fine bones in her ankle. Round calves darkened with hair. The woman even had pretty leg hair for Melitele’s sake.

“I know you’re very beautiful,” said Jaskier, which was not one of his most inspired lines. Yennefer rolled her eyes.

“We’re not fucking again,” she said. “So you can knock the feeble attempts at flattery right off.”

“I know you’re a mage.”

“The depths of your knowledge are truly stunning.”

“Your name is Yennefer.”

“Remarkable. You know my _name_? I have never been more charmed,” she said, downing the last of her glass of spirits and resolutely ignoring Jaskier’s gestured request for a glass of his own as she poured herself some more.

“I know that you er… that you have an insatiable sexual appetite?”

“Not incorrect,” said Yennefer with a glint of amusement in her violet eyes. “And you naively think that you could satisfy me.”

“I’ve done a bang up job so far, I’d say,” said Jaskier.

“Is that all you know, then?” she asked.

“Oh, I know far more,” he purred, lashes lowering. “Allow me to show you.”

“Aren’t you curious what I know of you?”

“Well, I am now.”

Jaskier could not wholly say if this was flirtation or not, but it certainly was inspiring similar bodily reactions. Already, he found parts of himself stirring with fresh interest. Namely, the parts between his legs.

He lounged back on the plush mattress, doing nothing to hide his nudity, stretching in an exaggerated fashion intended to draw her attention to his filling cock that lay against his bare thigh. Draw her attention it did, if only briefly, those violet eyes flickering down the length of his body.

“I know that your name is not Jaskier,” said the mage.

“It certainly is,” he protested. “Well… mostly.”

“You’re a noble. A Viscount of Lettenhove in Kerack.”

“Why, Yennefer,” said Jaskier, hand pressed to his chest, “have you been reading up on me?”

“You wear a ring with the Lettenhove seal. And your initials. The mark of your rank,” said Yennefer. “You don’t speak like a low-born man. You’re literate enough to write absolute drivel for drunken peasants to shout along to. And you dress to your station, though completely impractical for traveling.”

“Practicality is overdone. And boring. And trite.”

“I know also that you are a complete buffoon, an utter fool, and by far the most idiotic and disturbingly air-headed imbecile I have ever conversed with for any length of time.”

“Oh my dear Yennefer,” said Jaskier, shifting a hand to palm between his legs, “and I know that you are a cold-hearted witch, a foul-mouthed harpy, and the most horribly unpleasant woman I have ever had copious amounts of earth-shattering sex with.”

His cock had stiffened to full interest, and his hand slid lazily along its length, brazen in his intentions. He allowed his lips to part with little sighs of pleasure, his head lolling back against the pillows and hips shifting.

“And,” said Jaskier, skin prickling under the intensity of her gaze. “I know that we are going to fuck again even so. Very soon.”

“You know this, do you?” said Yennefer, her eyes locked with his as she drew a long pull from her glass of spirits. “You seem to have some gaps in your knowledge.”

“I know that I detest you,” said Jaskier, stroking himself in earnest now. “And that you detest me.”

“Not wrong there.”

“And I know that you are resisting an insatiable desire to bed me once more.”

“Resisting something,” grumbled Yennefer. “You’re making a fool of yourself. Why don’t you be quiet, bard?”

Jaskier’s eyes gleamed with mischief.

“Why don’t you make me?”

* * *

Yennefer looked down at him with murderous intent rising in her violet eyes. Not so different from the look she had worn a few short weeks ago when he awoke from his magically-induced stupor in Rinde.

This situation bore a striking and likely intentional similarity, Yennefer up on her knees on the bed crawling toward him, expression unfeeling and vacant in a way that was distinctly terrifying and perplexingly exhilarating.

“I told you,” said Jaskier smugly. “I knew that you would-- ouch, ow, fuck!”

The mage twisted her fingers into his fringe and tugged his head back hard, baring the line of his throat. Fingernails tapped against the taut skin of his neck, a shifting pressure as he swallowed.

“You seem to have forgotten that it was my magic that spared your lovely voice,” said Yennefer. “I could yet take that from you.”

Jaskier’s eyes widened.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, but I would. I could do so with a single word.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he whimpered, and her blank expression gave way to a smirk.

“Where’s that cheeky bravado gone, hmm? Did you not realize what you were asking for?”

“I’d hoped you would sit on my face. Not threaten me with magical muting.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Yennefer drawled.

“Who’s begging? Not me.”

Yennefer’s grip tightened in his hair, and he winced at the pain in his scalp. She leaned close, her sharply floral scent filling his nose as her hair fell in a curtain across his face. Her lips brushed against the shell of his ear.

“Beg,” she said just above a whisper. The sound of it sent a tremble of pleasure down his spine. “Beg that I spare your pretty little voice.”

“Please,” he groaned.

“Please what?” Her fingers stretched to tighten around his throat, a teasing pulse of magic humming through them. She could do it, he knew. It was well within her power to silence him for good.

The air in the room was too warm, his breathing deepening as he swallowed around her hold.

“Fuck me,” he said. “ _Please._ ”

“That’s not what I requested you beg for, you idiot.”

“Do it. Please. Take your pleasure from me,” he said, wetting his lips and feeling a warm rush of satisfaction as her eyes flicked down to his mouth. “Don’t hold back.”

“You’re insufferable,” said Yennefer. “You are absolutely infuriating and vulgar and infantile."

“That’s neither here nor there,” he said. “You’re going to fuck me again anyway.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t feel the same. You despise me.”

“Of course, I do,” said Jaskier. “What’s there to like? You’re horrid and cruel and your only redeeming quality seems to be that you’re very easy on the eyes.” She tugged sharply on his hair at that, and he yelped, breathing in ragged pants. “We don’t have to like each other to do this, Yennefer. In fact, it’s better that we don’t. Makes things more interesting.”

“You’re insane,” said Yennefer even as she shifted to straddle him, pinning his erection against his belly and the part of her legs. He moaned as she rubbed down against him, all heat and slick wetness. “I could throttle you. I could kill you without a blink of regret.”

“Then do it,” he insisted, his hands fisting in the sheets as she dragged herself against the length of his cock. She stopped just shy of enveloping the head within her warm folds before drawing back again. “But first, fuck me one last time.”

“I’ll do what I damn well please,” said Yennefer and did so.

* * *

When Geralt returned from his contract the next evening, he had scarcely entered their room (far more meager and potentially lice-infested than Yennefer’s) and slung his swords from his shoulder when he paused, scenting the air.

His eyes narrowed.

Jaskier, propped up on his bed with lute in hand scrawling notes for a new composition, feigned innocence, pretending that he hadn’t just been waxing poetic about the depths of the mage’s violet gaze, her raven tresses, her honeyed skin.

“You fucked the damn mage again,” Geralt growled.

“Guilty,” said Jaskier. “You can smell her on me, can’t you?”

“You reek.” The Witcher wrinkled his nose.

“Tell me,” he said, writing instrument tapping against his chin. “What does she smell like?”

“Lilacs,” said Geralt. “And gooseberries.”

“Ah, thank you. Couldn’t quite pin it down.”

“Fuck. You’re writing a fucking song about her, aren’t you?”

“A fucking song is right, my dear Witcher. A fucking one indeed. Now what rhymes with berry? Hairy? Scary? Both accurate descriptors of the witch but--”

“Do you think it’s wise to write something like that about her? She could still kill you, you know.”

“Oh, she’s tried,” said Jaskier dreamily. “Settled on little deaths, in the end. Much more fun that way.”

“On your head be it,” said Geralt as he shucked out of his dusty clothes and flopped face first onto the bed opposite Jaskier's. “If she comes after you, I won’t stop her from murdering you.”

“Aw, you won’t? Not even for your best pal?”

“Stop fucking the mage, Jaskier,” he grunted into the pillow.

“She has to stop fucking me first. And that’s not likely to happen. I’m highly irresistible.”

Geralt snored in response.

2

“You’re from Vengerberg,” said Jaskier on their next meeting just a fortnight later. The circumstances were fairly similar to the last time. Geralt off at the blacksmith to have Roach reshod. Jaskier minding his own business in another stinking tavern. Meeting eyes with a familiar stranger at the bar and cursing under his breath. “That’s one more thing I know about you.”

“Mmmm let me guess. Geralt told you?”

“Ah,” said the bard. “Well. Yes. Also, you smell like lilacs and gooseberries.”

“What on earth does a gooseberry smell like?”

“I mean… I haven’t the foggiest idea. It smells like you?”

Yennefer leaned on the bar beside him, goblet of red wine in hand. The bottle she had purchased was pricey and covered in a film of dust, possibly magically elicited from the tavernkeeper’s personal stores by the way his eyes had glazed over and his face gone somewhat slack when she requested his finest vintage.

She had kept the bottle steadfastly away from Jaskier’s grabbing hands, and he grumbled into his own cup of lackluster ale.

“You’re following me,” said Yennefer. “I am sure I don’t have to tell you what a horrid idea that is.”

“No! No, of course, I’m not following you. Why by every god would I do such a thing? It’s not as if I treasure your company.”

“Mhmmm,” she hummed into her drink. “Don’t play coy. You were the one who begged me to fuck you last time.”

Jaskier sputtered into his drink, eyes darting around the very busy tavern.

“That’s erm… not something I thought you would admit so publicly.”

Yennefer tapped at the pendant wrapped tight around her throat. Jaskier found that he couldn’t quite look directly at it, his eyes sliding away when he tried to.

“Most people pay little attention to me,” she said. “I make sure of it.”

“Magic?”

“No,” she deadpanned. “I, an all-powerful mage, would never use _magic_. Could you believe?”

“You are _not_ all-powerful,” said Jaskier with a snort.

“How could you of all people possibly know that?”

“No one’s all-powerful.”

“Semantics. I’m as close to all-powerful as they come.”

“The depths of your humility astound me.”

“Humility,” said Yennefer with a dangerous edge to her voice, “is a patriarchal trap meant to rob the truly powerful of the satisfaction of their achievements.”

A delightful thrill of fear ran down Jaskier’s spine.

“Oooh, Yennefer of Vengerberg, has anyone ever told you that you look wretchedly terrifying when you say things like that?”

“Is that meant to be a compliment?”

“No,” said Jaskier. “Why would you-- How does one interpret ‘wretchedly terrifying’ as singing your praises?”

“Because coming from you, it may as well be.”

“It most certainly is not praise.”

“Speaking of singing,” said Yennefer. Her violet eyes blazed. “You wrote a song about me.”

“You were the villain,” said Jaskier. “You should _not_ look pleased about that.”

“I make a good villain. And it’s good for business.”

“Tales of your assault on a poor, hapless bard while in the throes of demonic possession are… good for business?

“There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” said Yennefer. “Those who I wish to be terrified of me remain terrified and those who wish me to terrify others are drawn to me. It’s a win-win.”

“Excellent, excellent, so is that permission to write more songs about your very terrifying person? That last one has been a hit and a half.”

“No more songs, bard. Or I castrate you.”

“Is that some sort of fetish of yours? You seem to take great pleasure in threatening my manhood at a moment’s notice.”

“I find it quite pleasurable, yes.”

“I’ll remember that for next time.”

“There won’t be a next time, you ignoramus. There shouldn’t have been a last time.”

“Ah, but there was. And there will be.”

“Doubtful,” said Yennefer, but her eyes did not leave his. They stood close enough to touch but did not do so, Jaskier leaning back on his elbows, and Yennefer turned away from the bustle of the tavern crowd, hunched slightly over her drink.

Yennefer wore men’s clothing. Trousers, a plain black tunic woven with silver threads along the conservative neckline, leather traveling boots, and her usual sweeping cloak. No one paid her any mind at all.

Jaskier remembered the pendant she wore. He seemed to be the only man or woman in the entire room who knew she was there.

So she had come here to drink and not be seen. Had not expected him to bumble along and notice her.

In contrast to her muted appearance, Jaskier’s purple and crimson ensemble complete with artfully askew feathered cap looked positively garish. Something in him delighted in said contrast. What an odd pair they made. How entirely ill-suited to one another they were.

He was drawn to her all the same.

“I won’t make a sound the whole time, I promise you,” assured Jaskier as he leaned closer to her, lashes lowered, thinking _she is going to chop my cock off and cook it for dinner_ even as he did so.

Yennefer eyed him speculatively for a long moment. She finally shoved her dusty bottle of wine across the bar to him so he could drain the last dregs.

“We’ll see about that.”

* * *

Yennefer was renting a room in the inn a little ways down the road from the tavern. The room had a roaring fireplace and a luxurious feather bed and looked suspiciously lived in for a rented room. Knowing Yennefer, this wasn’t an inn at all, and she’d simply coaxed a wealthy merchant out of his home and left him wandering naked across town somewhere.

Jaskier did not have long to further contemplate his surroundings before he was unceremoniously shoved back onto the plush bed.

Not by Yennefer herself but by a blast of magic that knocked him off his feet.

Yennefer examined her fingernails as she strode across the room to lean against a bedpost.

“This mattress is divine,” groaned Jaskier. “Who did you kill for this room? I mean that extremely literally. That’s another thing I know about you. You are more than capable of killing a man for his fine linens.”

“I didn’t kill him,” said Yennefer and did not elaborate, still staring intently at her cuticles. Jaskier was already hard in his breeches, straining against the fastenings.

“Frankly, I would kill a man for a bed this wonderful. And you’re going to fuck me on this heavenly thing? You could kill _me_ in a bed this wonderful. I’d let you. It would be worth it.”

“I’m not going to fuck you,” said Yennefer.

“Pity,” said Jaskier. “Waste of a good bed.”

“Speaking of fetishes--”

“Oh, I like where this is going.”

“--do you happen to have one for literally being murdered. Because I can oblige, you know. You seem to push me closer to it with every word you speak.”

“I prefer remaining soundly among the living, thank you very much,” said Jaskier. Which was true. Though he couldn’t deny there was a certain eroticism in being with someone who could snuff him out in a blink if they so chose.

Yennefer smirked.

“You really do have a death wish,” she said. “A strangely erotic death wish.”

“Ah,” said Jaskier. “I’d forgotten that mages can do that.” He waved his hands about. “The mind reading thing.”

“I didn’t read your mind. I don’t have to. It’s all over your face.”

“I very much wish that something else was all over my--”

* * *

She obliged him said wish.

* * *

Her toned thighs flexed as they bracketed his head, hearing muffled by the muscle clamped around him. Despite the seeping discomfort in his poor, trapped ears, he could still hear well enough that she seemed very appreciative of the attentions of his tongue.

Jaskier was very good at this, he knew. He excelled at this, and she was most blessed indeed to have him in such a position with his tongue working against her. He would be more excellent still with full use of his hands to assist with the task, but unfortunately, the position did not allow it.

The position did allow for him to grip an ample handful of Yennefer’s exquisite backside in each palm. His thumbs worked along the curve where her ass met her thigh, dipping teasingly into the cleft of her cheeks and stroking along the dense curls of hair there but not dipping in farther.

Yennefer rocked her hips down against his mouth and back into his hands, and she tasted wonderful, warm and heady on his tongue, slick and fragrant.

 _Lilacs and gooseberries_ , he thought. No one’s cunt smelled of lilacs, but hers managed to, a faint whiff beneath the musk and sweat and coppery, wet taste of her.

As promised, he could not speak these thoughts aloud without slacking in his attentions, and Jaskier was no slacker by any means.

Not in this at least.

His tongue swirled up over the swollen flesh of her clitoris, pressing down flat to feel the heartbeat that pulsed wildly there. She groaned as he flicked his tongue against her, thighs jumping.

“A clever tongue,” gasped the mage as she drew a hand through his hair, and Jaskier flexed his fingers against the round of her behind. He resisted the urge to draw back and mumble a witty response against the skin of her thigh.

She wanted him quiet, and he would endeavor to stay so.

For now.

His eyes fluttered open to see her looking back, lips parted with stilted gasps and moans. Her dark hair fell loose over one shoulder, and from this angle, he had the perfect view of the flat plane of her stomach, a line of dark hair trailing up along her navel.

The sweet curve of her breasts was utterly distracting.

 _You are so very beautiful_ , he wanted to say and was glad he could not express such a thought. It seemed a step too far and a vulnerability easily exploited. She had ego enough and surely heard such praises from all her lovers.

She had no need of his fumbling praises, only the lap of his tongue and the press of his fingers between her legs.

He crooked two fingers within her, simply holding there to feel her shift back against him and the flutter of her warmth around him.

“You’d like to fuck me, wouldn’t you?” Yennefer asked, nails dragging along the line of his scalp. He hummed against her, nose dipping into coarse hair as he nodded. His hips shifted, seeking friction, still fully clothed and cock untouched.

_She’s not going to fuck me. Just like she said._

“No, I’m not going to fuck you.”

His eyes widened as he licked a long stripe along her cunt.

_Thought you said you wouldn’t read my mind._

“You’re thinking very loudly,” said Yennefer. She tightened her fingers in his hair, tugging him closer against her. “Your brain gets a bit frantic when something is withheld from you. Must have been a spoiled child. Can’t stand to be denied something for even a moment.”

He struggled to breathe through his nose, held against her wet heat, the rush of his own heartbeat loud in his muffled ears. Something deep and desperate ran through him from the ache in his lungs to the throb of his erection.

 _Do I have to beg for it?_ , he thought.

“Begging won’t do you any good.”

 _Can’t breathe._ The thought began to override all others. She held him still, grinding down against his face, and he kept up the work of his tongue as best he could.

“What would you like better? To get fucked or continue to draw breath in your lungs?”

 _A terrible conundrum,_ he thought and cursed his own inability to leave the cheeky banter for some other time when he was not likely to suffocate to death in the sweet agony of the witch’s cunt.

She tugged sharply at his hair, his scalp burning.

“Call me a witch again and suffocating will be the last of your worries.”

 _Witch_ , he thought very firmly, eyes locked with hers as he began to shift his fingers inside her, crooking to rub until he found that spot within that drew a choked groan from her lips. _You are just the worst, and I detest you. I cannot stand you._

He brought her to the brink of her orgasm like that. With the drag of his tongue and curl of his fingers and pointed insults formed in his wavering thoughts.

With one last sweep of his tongue and an endless repetition of _witchwitchwitchwitch_ , her muscles clenched through the waves of her orgasm, arching to moan through the aftershocks as her hips slowed to a gentle rock against his face.

She pulled him back by his hair far enough that he could draw sharp breaths again, then leaned away from his mouth entirely. His fingers stilled with his ragged gasping, the light-headed feeling that had begun to dance in dark spots across his vision disappearing again.

“Fuck,” he gasped. “Thought you really were going to kill me.”

“I still could,” said Yennefer as she rolled from him and onto her side on the mattress. It took Jaskier a moment to realize that she seemed to be preparing to drift off to sleep.

“You’re really going to leave me like this?” he asked, and she did not turn back to him. ‘This’, as he could see in the wide, ornate mirror above the fireplace, was his chin wet with her slick and his own saliva, his hair standing in disheveled tufts, and the line of his erection straining painfully hard against the silk of his garish trousers.

In the mirror, he could also see her looking. Her violet eyes caught the light, strange and unreadable. He could not begin to guess what she was thinking.

“I’m tired,” she said, and she really did sound it, cracking an exaggerated yawn for good measure. “Finish yourself off for all I care. Just don’t be here in the morning.”

And he did, putting aside how odd it felt to lay beside a beautiful woman and stroke himself to completion while he listened to her breathing slow with impending sleep. He finished quietly as he could into the bunched edge of a blanket and stole from the bed.

Yennefer slept or pretended to sleep, her figure dwarfed by the massive bed.

He had no intention of being there in the morning. Or a moment longer.

* * *

Geralt groaned when Jaskier finally returned to the tavern.

They had intended to meet up for a round or two of drinks after the blacksmith sorted Roach, but Jaskier felt dead on his feet and likely looked it as well. He had cleaned up as best he could, hair patted down and face scrubbed red with ice cold water from the hand pump outside the tavern.

He didn’t want to think about what he smelled like.

“Don’t tell me what I smell like,” said Jaskier, stealing the Witcher’s mug of ale and downing a long gulp. He still tasted her on his tongue, even as he attempted to drown it in the piss-swill of Geralt’s ale. “I don’t want to think about it.”

Geralt, of course, told him anyway.

“Lilacs and gooseberries and her fucking cunt,” said Geralt, loudly enough that several of the other patrons looked round at them and Jaskier choked on his-- on Geralt’s ale.

“Well,” said Jaskier. “Now I know. And so do all these lovely people.” He waggled his fingers in a wave at some of the lovely people still staring, and they looked away at once.

“How do you even keep finding her?”

He waved away Jaskier’s attempts to press his mug back into his hand, nose wrinkling.

“Magic,” said Jaskier with a lofty sniff. “We are bound by the depths of our hatred for one another.”

“You don’t know fuck all about magic, Jaskier,” said Geralt. “That’s not how it works.”

“I know a great deal more than you.”

“You know fuck all,” Geralt said, slurring around the edges with a touch of drunkenness. He pointed a stern finger at him. It reminded Jaskier very much of similar gestures of his own he had extended to his friend throughout the years, and he hid a fond smile in his mug. “Stop fucking the mage.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes and ordered the Witcher a fresh mug of ale.

And, despite his friend’s grumbled protests, promptly stole a sip from that one as well.

3

A month later, they met in Novigrad in the vibrant chaos of the wet market along the edge of the docks. The market was loud with the shriek of gulls and the holler of fishmongers and merchants of more exotic wares, and it stank of fish guts and brine and body odor.

And suddenly, lilacs.

He caught sight of a figure in a black cloak bartering at a market stall and knew her before she turned to catch his eye.

“Ah, Yennefer,” he said as he selected a ripe peach from the vendor’s wares and flicked a coin the man’s way. “How utterly loathsome to see you here.” He realized only as he bit into the freshly-purchased fruit that perhaps the fruit had gone a bit overripe, juice dribbling onto his powder blue doublet. “Bollocks,” he whined.

To his befuddlement, he watched as Yennefer reached out a hand and straightened his crooked collar, the stain vanishing at once.

“Will you ever refrain from making a mess of yourself in my company?” she asked, and his cheeks warmed. _The sun_ , he thought. _It’s ever so hot for so late in autumn._

“I’ll have you know I would rather refrain from being in your company at all,” he said.

“I would believe that,” said Yennefer, “if you weren’t so clearly dogging me across the Continent.”

“I am _not_ following you. If anything, I have been trying my best to flee far, far away from you. Just a week ago, I heard tell of a terrifying mage turning tricks in Vizima and headed in the opposite direction when I parted from Geralt.”

“That was me,” said Yennefer. “Though I prefer to winter somewhere less dreary and bogged down in politics than Vizima.”

“Novigrad is certainly not dreary,” said Jaskier. “Though you’re a mage. Couldn’t you just snap your fingers and make anywhere a little pocket of not dreary?”

“Boring,” she said simply.

“All that power, and it’s wasted on you.” Jaskier sighed dramatically. “If I had magic, I would conjure myself a palace in the clouds full of maidens with well-endowed bosoms. I'd never come down for anything.”

“You would fit in perfectly with many of my fellows.”

Jaskier had the feeling she meant that sentiment as an insult.

They walked beside one another in the teeming market, Yennefer carrying a basket under her arm and stopping from time to time to inspect the wares of one stall or another.

He couldn’t say why he continued to walk beside her, hands shoved in his pockets and head tipped back. Patches of blue sky tufted with clouds could be glimpsed here and there above the eaves of the ramshackle buildings that lined Novigrad’s cobbled streets.

The market petered away to the ordinary rabble of the less-than-dreary Free City, wagons rattling past and women leaning out windows to beat their laundry and shout at their children mucking about in the streets. Performers littered here and there on the corners, a raucous clash of noise that made Jaskier’s heart soar and his fingers itch to join them.

Yennefer turned down a covered alley and stopped to turn a key into a gate that guarded a stone stairwell.

“My apartments,” she said, the gate cracked open with a squeal of abused hinges. “You may either fuck off and go do whatever pissant nonsense your sort is likely to get up to in this city. Or come up and sit with me on the veranda a while.”

“I am not coming up to do untoward things with you on your veranda,” said Jaskier.

Yennefer smirked at him and turned away to climb the steep stairs.

He followed after her.

* * *

“You have a very, very nice… veranda,” said Jaskier, leaning back in a wicker chair to sip at the dark wine the witch had procured for them from her stores.

Yennefer wore her dark hair loose around her shoulders, a sight that never failed to unsettle him. Most women of any status across the Continent wore their hair in neat plaits or demurely covered, but her curls spilled untamed across her bare shoulders. Was this the habit of all mages or simply of Yennefer? Seeing as he had not met any others and very dearly hoped not to, he could not say for certain.

The plunging neckline of her black dress seemed to defy all laws of physics, remaining in place even as she leaned to fill her own goblet. He did not hide his ogling of her bosom.

“Quit your ogling, you lecher,” she said.

“Oi, was I not meant to take ‘come up to my bountiful veranda, you handsome thing’ as a blatant euphemism?”

“I said no such thing and never have.”

“It was implied. I can read between the lines.”

“I invited you here to talk,” said Yennefer, “about why you’re following me. And how exactly you’re even doing it.”

The balcony off of her luxurious apartments was positioned just so to give a delightful view of terraced rooftop gardens and the distant glitter of the ocean, while avoiding any sight of the more unseemly parts of the city. Moonflower vines climbed weathered trellises that bordered the veranda and potted plants spilled from clay pots, their colors and scents not yet dulled by autumn frosts as was the case elsewhere in the city.

So much for not magicking a place less dreary.

He opened his mouth to say so and caught sight of the mage’s dour expression.

“Right,” said Jaskier. “How do I convince you that I’m not following you?”

“By no longer following me.”

“I’m not! I am really, really not!”

“How are you doing it? A tracking spell? A poppet?” She considered him over her goblet of wine. “You must have obtained a taglock of some kind at the manor house. A few hairs perhaps? A bit of bodily fluid?”

“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about, and I have done nothing with your _fluids_ , Yennefer.”

“You must have paid a hefty price for such a thing. Which of my fellows was it? Your thoughts on this are too murky to see clearly. That must have been part of the bargain as well.”

“There was no bargain. I’m not following you. I am not following you. How many times must I repeat this until you believe me?”

“Many, many times,” said Yennefer.

“Listen, what can I do to convince you? I’ll swear it by that which is most valuable to me. I will. I’ll swear by it.”

“You don’t have anything valuable, bard. You have piss all.”

“I swear by my left tit that I am not following you.”

“Your tit? What a worthless thing to swear by. No one gives a lark about your left tit.”

“My left nut then. I swear by my left nut.”

“Worthless. Swear by the whole lot or none at all.”

“What? No way. You won’t believe me anyway, and you’d take any meager excuse to enact your castration fetish most gleefully.”

“I don’t have a castration fetish. You’re the one who keeps bringing up your testicles, you idiot.”

“I can’t help it. Bad memories. Such bodily threats stay with a man.”

“I could bodily threaten you some more if that’s what you’d prefer. I’ve been trying to be nice.”

“ _Nice?_ You? Yennefer? Nice? Ha! That’s really quite hilarious. That’s a very good joke. That’s--”

The witch leaned across the table and, in one quick motion, had his aforementioned bits palmed in a vice grip.

“Ah, deja vu,” he muttered weakly.

“Tell me the method by which you have been following me,” she said, her fingernails tightening around the sensitive flesh.

“I swear by my uh--” He winced, fighting the urge to wriggle away, knowing she would only grip him more firmly. “I swear by all that I have that I am not following you. I don’t know why we keep running into each other, and I would very much like to not do so any longer. For the sake of my sanity and the well-being of my genitals.”

Said traitorous genitals twitched against her hand, cock beginning to fill.

She scrutinized him, head tipped to the side, lips pursed, and seemed to finally see something in his expression or in his thoughts that satisfied her.

Rather than remove her hand entirely, she released her grip on his testicles and rubbed her palm along the hard length swelling in his trousers. His breath hitched, and his hips shifted involuntarily up into the touch.

“And you claim that I am the one with the castration fetish?” she said, walking her fingers along his clothed erection.

“It’s not that,” he said as her fingers continued to tease him. “I very much like all my bits firmly attached and intact. It’s the… I dunno.”

Her scrutiny seemed only to intensify, the edges of her lips quirked up with amusement, her violet eyes smoldering.

“You like things a bit dangerous,” said Yennefer. She dragged her fingernails down the front of his silk trousers, the thin fabric doing little to dull their sharpness. “Why else would you follow after a Witcher? Why else would you keep seeking me out?”

“For the last time, I don’t intend to seek you out.” He arched against her fluttering touches, gripping the seat of the wicker chair with white-knuckled hands. “It just happens.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, pressing her palm more firmly against him. He thought she would shift back to threatening him again but made no move to do so, the flat of her palm stroking with a very different intent.

“I’ve sworn by my most splendid treasure, and you still don’t believe me?”

“Fuck, never call it that again, or I really will rip it off,” said Yennefer. “And maybe someone’s putting you up to it. One could threaten something far more dear than your cock.”

“Yennefer,” said Jaskier, his attempt at a somber expression ruined by the pink flush of his cheeks and little jerks of his hips into her hand. “You must know that there is very, very little more dear to me than my cock.”

“Fine,” said Yennefer. “I believe you.”

“Great. Wonderful. Now stop teasing me, would you?”

“Stop touching you? That can be arranged.” She removed her hand, and an embarrassing whine escaped from his mouth.

“Oh, you utter--”

“Call me witch again, and you won’t get off today.”

“--wonderful, exquisite, most marvelous _witch_ of a woman.”

To his great surprise and utter amazement and blatant astonishment, the mage shifted to kneel at his feet on the sunny veranda, her hands working on the laces of his silk trousers.

“Eep,” he squeaked as her fingers curled around the flushed skin of his cock, and she rose on her knees to hold the head against her full bottom lip. The puff of her breath over his overheated skin had him helplessly tightening his grip on the seat of the wicker chair. “Oh gods,” he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. “Oh gods, I can’t--”

“Are you really going to come just from this?” she asked, and the movement of her lips sent a tremble through his thighs.

“I very well could,” he groaned. “Oh gods, I just might. What the fuck are you up to, Yennefer?”

“I had thought one as well-travelled as yourself would understand the intentions of a woman kneeling between your legs.”

“You’re no ordinary woman,” said Jaskier.

A dangerous smile pressed against the head of his cock. As Jaskier looked down at her, slumped back against the chair, she flicked out her tongue along the underside of the glans. A teasing taste, there and gone, but the slight touch caused his hips to jerk up, bumping his cock against her chin.

“Hold still,” she said, one hand gripping his waist, nails digging into his hipbone. “And don’t come.”

“Yes, yes,” said Jaskier, breathing through his nose. “I can do that. No moving, no coming yet. I can do that. I’m good with that.”

Yennefer hummed and opened her lips around him, holding just the glans in her mouth. Her tongue swept up to lap at the slit, and the wicker chair squeaked with tension as his hands tightened around it.

“No, you fool,” said Yennefer, drawing back just enough for her breath to tease along the place her tongue had wet. “No coming _at all_. Did I not make myself clear?”

Jaskier whined as she slipped him back into her mouth, dipping farther this time but nowhere near as far as he wished. He was struck by the fear that she would pull off and leave him here, wrecked and desperate.

“You utter--”

The faintest brush of teeth shut him right up. He realized in sobering horror that though Yennefer was on her knees before him, she was not the vulnerable one in this situation.

And the intention of this act was not to bring him pleasure.

“I told you,” Yennefer said, holding the length of his cock in one hand to kiss under the head, “not to call me a witch.”

And she swallowed him in earnest, her lips slipping to rest against her knuckles as she worked him with both hand and tongue.

“Fuck,” groaned Jaskier. “Fuck, fuck.”

 _Ever so eloquent, poet,_ brushed Yennefer’s voice against the edge of his thoughts.

“Forgive me for thinking less about diction than I’d like at the moment rather than-- oh gods.”

Their eyes locked as she brought him in and out of her mouth, devilish tongue swirling, and he found himself struck by the fine wisps of hair that slicked with sweat to her brow.

_I can feel your arousal._

“No fucking shit, Yennefer.”

_I will know when you are drawing close to the peak._

She tightened her lips around him to draw him deeper, and he fought to still his hips.

_And I will not allow you to reach the crest and tip over._

He felt himself nearly there, her movements building a steady pressure, and as promised, the moment it threatened to deepen into release, she pulled free of him. A strand of saliva stretched from his glans to her mouth that broke with a twitch of his cock.

“Evil,” he said, squirming in the wicker chair.

“You’re not going to make things any better for yourself saying things like that,” said Yennefer. Her fingers teased along his length but offered no solid touch.

“Absolutely _the worst_ ,” he groaned.

“You’ll do better next time to heed my warnings,” said Yennefer. 

“Next time? Oh, there will _not_ be a next time.”

She swallowed him to the base, the wet heat of her mouth drawing him right to the edge again and away as she drew back again.

_I am going to fucking die. I am going to perish here on this very lovely veranda._

“I thought you drew pleasure from near-death experiences, bard,” whispered Yennefer against the head of his cock before drawing him in again.

“Near-death,” he groaned, closing his eyes against the sensation of not quite, almost there.

It went on like that for what felt like an entire age until she could scarcely brush her lips against him without driving him past the point of no return. His every nerve thrummed with the tension of it. His eyes rolled in his head.

“Had enough?”

“Mercy,” he whimpered. “I’m sorry. Sorry for calling you a witch. I c-can’t-- I’m--”

“Thank you for the apology,” she said and promptly got to her feet, dusting off the knees of her gown with a grimace.

“Wait, no, no, no, hang on, you’ve got to--”

“I don’t have to do anything,” said Yennefer and sat back in her chair to cross her long legs in front of her, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and washing away the taste of him with a swig of wine from her goblet.

“Yennefer!”

“You have hands, don’t you?” She said, sprawling back in her chair, the picture of smug nonchalance. A faint dampness on her brow and redness of her mouth was the only evidence of her recent activities. “Use them.”

He did not need to wait for further direction, splaying his legs into the hand that fisted his cock.

His heartbeat rushed in his ears as he rutted up against his own palm. Yennefer watched him, drawing slow pulls from her goblet.

An ache rose in his groin, heat pooling low in his belly, and he fumbled toward it, the friction of his dry palm nearly too much to bear.

Made more unbearable still as Yennefer shifted in her chair, twitched up the folds of her skirt, and pressed a hand between her own legs.

His orgasm struck him with a breathy whine, and he spent in warm pulses across his knuckles and clothed thighs, heedless of the fine fabric he was staining.

Slowly, the world filtered back around him. The cry of gulls and the bustle of the street below. The slant of the late afternoon sun. The cool, sea breeze that rose among the buildings.

The quiet sounds of Yennefer bringing herself to her own release in the chair across from him.

* * *

“Whew,” Jaskier breathed once a modicum of sense slithered back into his head. “ _Whew_ boy, now wasn’t that something.”

“Pity,” said Yennefer, her gown settled back into place as though she had not been pleasuring herself a scant moment before. “I had hoped that wonderful speechless stupor would last longer.”

“You’ll have to try harder next time,” said Jaskier. “Or perhaps not quite so hard. The prolonged hardness is a fate I wish to avoid in the future.”

“I thought there wouldn’t be a next time,” she drawled with a quirk of a dark brow, and he laughed, relaxing into boneless exhaustion in his chair.

“Oh, if only,” he said with a shake of his head. “If only I could be allowed a respite from your company.”

“I’m delightful company,” said Yennefer.

“Only just.”

* * *

He stayed for a second bottle of wine and dinner brought up from the tavern across the way, seasoned roast in thick gravy that fell off the bone and fresh-baked bread and an apple tart shared between them for desert. As blue dusk darkened across the rooftops of Novigrad, Yennefer lifted a hand and dim clusters of lights flickered over the veranda.

The strange light glowed on her honeyed skin as the moonflowers opened on the trellis behind her, stark white petals shimmering against the blue dark of the city and the deeper black of her loose hair.

Later, he penned the details into his notes, crossing out more scrawled words than not. She resisted description, the language filtering through his grasp like water from cupped palms. Every metaphor fell flat. Every verse rang hollow.

“Bollocks to this,” he said at last and put his notes away.

 _She simply was not meant for tender poetry,_ he thought.

He would write another about the hapless bard and her furious wrath instead.

4

A cold sleet fell over the city of Novigrad for the majority of that winter. Many afternoons and evenings, Jaskier tucked himself into crowded taverns at the heart of the city, cold fingers fumbling over the strings of his lute as he sang for his supper and for coin enough to rent an upper room across from a tannery. The scents and sights were abysmal, the room itself threadbare and roach-infested, but it hardly mattered. He kept the room simply for security.

He spent more nights than not in Yennefer’s company.

It began with that first shared night on the veranda, the repetition of _next time_ settling into accepted fact.

There would be a next time and a time after that. It seemed futile to deny it, not with the both of them cooped up in the same city for the next several months.

The very next morning, Jaskier leaned on the railing of a weathered pier, watching the sails of merchant ships billow in the crowded port, when a familiar stranger stepped up beside him, gloved hands coming to rest on the railing.

“Now who’s following who?” said Jaskier, chuckling. A wind off the sea ruffled Yennefer’s dark curls.

“We’re bound to bump into one another in a city this small,” she said.

“It’s not a small city. Very much the opposite of a small city, actually.”

“You brood very loudly. It’s hard to ignore.”

“I’m not brooding,” said Jaskier. “And quit peering into my brain.”

“Trust me, I’m not interested in doing so. It takes more effort than you might think, and the contents of your brain are hardly worth all that.”

“Right,” he said. “Why are you here, then?”

“I knew you’d be here,” said Yennefer. “I saw the image like an imprint in my brain. You. Standing on this pier. It’s not the first time I’ve seen such a thing, but it’s the first time I allowed it to guide me.”

“Ah, that’s…. well, what does that mean exactly?”

“Means we’re fucked,” said Yennefer. “Something’s fucking with us.”

“All those times you thought I was following you were… what?”

“You really were following me,” she said. “You just aren’t quite bright enough to know when you’re being manipulated.”

“Oi! I’m plenty bright. I was top of my class at Oxenfurt.”

Yennefer rolled her eyes. “Magically gifted, I mean, you idiot. You don’t know the first thing about magical manipulation. Why would you? I have more magic in my pinky toe than you do in your entire body.”

“Is that what this is?” Jaskier asked. “Magic?”

“No,” said Yennefer. She tipped her head to consider something. “Yes.”

“Right, well that clears that up then.”

“Fine. I don’t know what this is. It could be magic. It could be something else.”

“Oof, that must be oh so hard for you, hmm? Yennefer of Vengerberg admitting she doesn’t know something.”

“Don’t pretend that you know me, bard,” she said with a sharpness that sobered him. She had every capability of dunking him in the harbor if she so wished, and he couldn’t have that. He had spent a fortune on these calfskin boots. “We may be entangled together, but you know nothing about me.”

“I know that you resist any perceived vulnerability,” he said. “That you fear that any gaps in your knowledge could be exploited as weakness.”

“I fear nothing,” said Yennefer, and Jaskier laughed, leaning out over the water, forgetting his worry that she would dunk him in the ocean.

“That’s proof enough that I’m right about that one,” he said.

“I know that you are a two-bit minstrel and a paltry songsmith bleating your uninspired drivel across the Continent.”

“I know that you respond to perceived vulnerability by narrowing in on the insecurities of others.”

“You know nothing,” said Yennefer.

“I know you’re going to invite me for breakfast,” said Jaskier. “And that I’m going to stay the night.”

“Now you’re truly revealing how little you know.”

“I can see it,” he said, tapping his temple.

And he could, in the same way that she had said. As an imprint, like something pressed into his thoughts. He saw the veranda, the overcast sky, and a brimming pitcher of apple cider. He saw her in naked repose amongst her crimson sheets, the dark trail of her body hair, the part of her red lips on a sigh.

“An overactive imagination,” said Yennefer. “Nothing more.”

* * *

It was as he had seen.

They ate bread and honey and cider for breakfast together on the veranda. With no sun to warm the rooftop, the wind soon grew too cold to remain outdoors, and they tumbled into bed together.

She teased him, prodded him, coaxed him to sing her praises, and well past dark, she lay sated in her bed, crimson fabric pooled around her legs, eyes closed as she hummed a warm note in the evening quiet.

He lay next to her, not daring to touch, and when she dimmed the lamplight with a word, they slept that way beside one another.

And woke with the sun in the morning just the same.

* * *

It was not every night that they fell together but enough nights.

It was not every morning that they woke together.

But enough.

* * *

“Are we lovers?” Jaskier asked one morning in her bed, still bleary with sleep. He cursed his own choice of words the moment they left his lips.

“Why? Are you in love?” Yennefer asked with derisive amusement, and he snorted.

“With you? Of course not,” he said. “The very thought is preposterous. I only meant--”

“I know what you meant.” She sat up against the pillows, the thin winter light spilling through the windows of the bedroom and across her skin. He wished to trail a hand up the soft skin of her stomach but resisted doing so. She wasn’t one for aimless touches, even naked in bed beside one another. “You wish to put a formal name to the chains that bind us. Just as all men do.”

“How melodramatic,” said Jaskier. “Be glad you chose sorcery over being a bard. You’d never stand up to the competition.”

“As if I chose sorcery,” she said. “Mages don’t choose fuck all.”

She rose from the bed, and he watched her shoulderblades flex as she tied her hair back into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. No matter the weather outside, the air in her apartments was kept warm as a summer evening, and they slept bare in bed together and dined bare and sat bare playing Gwent in the study and stayed up late drinking wine in the sitting room bare as well.

Jaskier often wondered if the nudist tendencies were a mage thing or a Yennefer thing.

He wondered that of many things he noticed about her. Were the quirks and oddities that separated her so wholly from any woman he’d ever known shared by other all-powerful, eerily beautiful women and men throughout the Continent? Or was it just her?

“Tell me about being a mage,” he said, shuffling down into the sheets on his belly.

“No,” said Yennefer and strode out of the bedroom.

“Nice talking to you, Yennefer,” he muttered into the sheets. “How wonderful to have such a lovely conversation partner.”

“I got pears for breakfast,” Yennefer called from the dining room, voice pitched to carry.

“Pears?” Jaskier asked, stumbling his way out of the bed. “Those are horrendously out of season.”

“Not everywhere,” said Yennefer, presenting a bowl of fruit. Jaskier lifted one to inspect it.

“These aren’t fake pears, are they? Magical, fake pears?”

“No,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You don’t want to eat illusory food. Terrible aftertaste.”

The pears had anything but a terrible aftertaste, and Jaskier ate two of them one after the other, delighted to peer out the windows at the grey skies and barren husks of plants on the veranda rustling in a chill wind and not feel a lick of cold.

“I could get used to this,” he said.

“To eating pears?” Yennefer lounged on a chaise flipping through a dusty tome whose thick girth appeared daunting even for a man of literature such as himself.

“That,” said Jaskier, gesturing with the fruit, “and to magical creature comforts. Do you live like this even when traveling?”

“Of course,” said Yennefer. “Though more often than not I travel by portal. Much more expedient.”

“You mages,” he groaned, “zipping about the Continent in a blink and living in perfect luxury while us mere mortals must scrabble about in the dirt for scraps.”

“It’s not as dramatic as all that,” said Yennefer.

“I play pretty ditties in humble taverns for a living, Yennefer,” he said. “I travel with a Witcher. It is as dramatic as all that. Half of the underbelly of Novigrad would give their left tit to spend one night in apartments like this.”

“No one wants their left tits,” said the mage. “No one wants anyone’s left tit.”

“That’s beside the point. I have seen depths of suffering and poverty that your ilk could never hope to grasp and moreover--”

“Do not,” said Yennefer, shoved upright on the chaise, her violet eyes ablaze. “Do not ever deign to make assumptions about my grasp on the depths of suffering.”

“Ah,” said Jaskier. “Touched a nerve there, I see. Sorry to offend.”

“Don’t condescend to me about what mages should and shouldn’t be doing to alleviate poverty and hunger and suffering,” she said. “It’s not as simple as all that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s political, bard. You wouldn’t have any hope of understanding.”

“I’ll have you know I studied politics in depth in--”

“Yes, yes, brightest pupil in all of Oxenfurt, but I am talking _magical_ politics, you fool.”

“Magical fruit and magical politics and blah, blah, blah. I’m growing a little tired of all this magic nonsense.”

“Weren’t you just singing its praises five minutes ago?”

“I can praise the effects while damning the source,” he said. “I’m a simple man. I like not freezing my bits off and eating fresh fruit in the dead of winter. But magic? I don’t trust it one bit.”

“Smarter than you look,” said Yennefer, lying back on the chaise.

“I look plenty smart. I was top of my--”

“No more prattling, little bastard, before I decide not to be kind to you tonight.”

“You’re never kind to me, Yennefer. You’re never even a little bit kind.”

* * *

She was not kind.

She rose above him in bed, her thighs gripping his waist, the warm curve of her body fallen half into shadow. She refused to lie beneath him, never relinquished control, sought to punish him for every slight grievance.

She turned away from him when it was over, curling down into sleep, snuffing the lights with a word, and slept very still and quiet, never shifting close to him, never brushing a limb with hers. She did not curl into his arms or hold him close, not even once, and she told him very clearly that she couldn’t stomach the idea of such a thing.

He didn’t mind it.

He did not love her, but he also didn’t mind any of it at all.

5

“Spring’s almost here,” said Jaskier as he gripped the iron railing along the edge of the veranda, Novigrad bustling with midday life below.

“You’ll go back on the road, then?” asked Yennefer. She picked lazily from a spread laid out on the table of sliced cheese and dates and nuts. “In hopes of meeting up with the Witcher?”

“Hopefully I find him quicker this year,” said Jaskier. “Last spring was dreadful. I had to wander through half of Velen until I finally bungled into him in those blasted swamps.”

“Why doesn’t he meet you here?”

“Now, that would be too simple. Too civilized. Too close to admitting that he likes traveling with me.”

“Does he like traveling with you?”

“Of course he does. I’m a joy to have around. You know this.”

“That’s debatable,” she said.

“You haven’t kicked me out yet.”

“I’ve kicked you out multiple times. I kick you out at least once a week.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. There was a reason he continued paying for his room across from the tannery. Yennefer was anything but predictable. “Anyway, Geralt’s my best friend. I’ve known him nearly half my life. He loves traveling with me.”

“Your best friend who you have to traipse across half the Continent looking for every spring?”

“That’s-- it’s complicated,” said Jaskier with a wave of his hand. “But soon! The open road again!” He spread his arms wide before the span of patchwork rooftops, face tipped up to the sky. “Goodbye, streets that reek of shit and piss. Hello, great outdoors!”

“You hate the great outdoors,” said Yennefer. “You complain daily about the great outdoors.”

“Yes, but it’s romantic. Walking through rippling fields of wildflowers, sleeping under the stars. Witnessing heroic feats of bravery and brawn and singing rousing renditions of our adventures around the campfire at night.”

“You’re in love with him,” drawled Yennefer, and Jaskier whipped back to look at her. She popped a pecan in her mouth and raised her eyebrows.

“What? Absolutely not.”

“You are. It’s exceedingly obvious.”

“Well,” said Jaskier, flushing pink. “Maybe I used to be, I suppose. When I was young. I was very enamored. And very foolish.”

“Still are,” said Yennefer.

“Foolish? Or in love with him?”

“Both.”

“ _Yennefer_ ,” whined Jaskier. “Do I look like the sort of man who would waste my one, precious life fawning after a man who could never love me back?”

“Yes,” she said and ate the last of the dates.

“Leave something for me,” said Jaskier.

“Quit being dramatic and eat something then.”

“I simply can’t,” he said, wilting against the railing, the back of his hand pressed against his forehead. “I’m too anxious to be on the road again. It’s so soon! It’s just a matter of days!”

“I’m eating all the pecans.”

“Yennefer!”

* * *

  
Their last night together in Novigrad, the pair indulged in a veritable banquet of meats and cheeses and unseasonably fresh fruits and a bottle of dry wine shared between them.

Jaskier intended to head out in the morning. His bags sat packed by the door, his lute case leaning against them.

With the wine warming a pleasant buzz in his skull, they soon found themselves in bed together, sinking into a now familiar embrace.

“Yennefer,” gasped Jaskier as she tangled her fingers loosely in his hair, the muscles in her thighs jumping under his spread palms as she rode him.

The blazing fire had long died to cinders in the hearth, and moonlight slanted into the darkened bedroom, washing out the crimson sheets and cooling Yennefer’s skin tone. Her deep violet eyes paled lavender. Her soft lips parted on a breath.

Above him, she resembled the curved planes of a statue. The sight of her called to mind the eerily beautiful figures depicted in the ruins of elven architecture across the Continent. He had known academics at Oxenfurt who studied such things and had never understood their endless fascination with the subject, the careful reverence with which they gazed at cold stone effigies.

But he understood it now.

“You are thinking very loudly,” said Yennefer, though by now, he had learned the subtle, telltale signs of her peering into his thoughts and knew that she was not looking. His scalp tended to prickle and temples start to ache when she dipped into his brain, but he felt neither as he looked up at her.

He thought more loudly still, hoping to entice her in.

He thought of the long winter spent in her apartments. Days lounging naked in one another’s company, evenings looking out over Novigrad’s rooftops burnished by the setting sun, nights engaging in rousing bouts of enthusiastic sexual endeavors.

He thought of the morning not long ago that he had woken to find that she had curled to face him in her sleep, her mussed hair spread behind her on the pillows and eyelids twitching with dreams. She looked vulnerable, younger, though her jaw did not lose its tightness. She ground her teeth sometimes at night and curled her arms around herself, knees tucked up almost to her elbows.

That morning, his fingers had itched to brush her hair from her face. To touch the soft swell of her cheek and brush his thumb against the corner of her mouth. To rouse her with a gentle press of his lips to hers.

For all their passionate fumbling, they had not shared a kiss since that first time at the manor house.

Oh but how he wanted to.

“ _Yennefer_ ,” breathed Jaskier and dared to shift up to press his lips to the jut of her ribcage. Her fingers curled into the hair at the nape of his neck, and his hands slid up the expanse of her back, drawing their bodies closer together.

“Stop thinking,” said Yennefer and rolled her hips in the way she had learned that he found most distracting. Her warm heat enveloped him, and an aching pressure deepened in his groin. He knew he would not last much longer. He hoped that she would choose to indulge in one of her games tonight, that she would deny him. He wanted it to last.

“We could--” he began. He held his hips still as she shifted above him, allowing her to take her pleasure from him. Her dark curls fell to tickle his shoulder as she increased her pace, leaning so he could no longer see her expression. He turned his head to breathe in the floral scent of her hair. “We could have more of this. We could.”

“Be quiet, Jaskier,” she panted, her sweat-damp forehead pressed against his shoulder. Her fingers tightened in his hair, nails pressing into the back of his neck with a promise of sharpness.

“It would be good,” he said. “The two of us.”

“No,” said Yennefer. “I don’t think so.”

“Stop thinking,” he said, and she tugged at his scalp. She did not slow her rhythm as she rode him, bordering on the edge of too fast, too much, breathing in sharp pants against his collarbone.

“Don’t be stupid. I know that’s fucking impossible for you but don’t--”

“It could be good, Yen. Admit it. You know it would be good,” he said. “Let yourself have something good for once in your life.”

“Gods fucking damn it, you fool,” said Yennefer and abruptly straightened to pull away from him, her eyes blazing. “Can’t you just listen and be quiet for once?”

“No,” he said with a cheeky grin that soon floundered as she lifted herself free of his cock and sat back on her heels. “Wait, Yen--”

“You arrogant, pissant bastard,” she spat, trembling with anger. Jaskier had seen her angry, had seen her enraged, but this eclipsed anything he had yet witnessed. His erection began to wilt, and he scrambled back against the headboard. She did not advance on him, but the depths of fury in her eyes held him still all the same. “My life is nothing but _letting_ myself have good things. I don’t hold back from seeking my own pleasure. I don’t restrain myself from fuck all.”

“Yennefer, I--”

“ _Quiet_. What more could you offer me that I could not find elsewhere, hmm? A stiff cock? Some sweet words? Don’t flatter yourself. Don’t think for even a moment that you know what would be good for me. Don't fool yourself into believing you know me. You don’t know anything at all.”

In the moonlight, her posture stiff with fury and eyes gleaming, she resembled all the more a figure carved of stone. It seemed the more he knew of her, the less he felt sure of understanding. The more he studied her, the farther every part of her sank into secrecy.

“I’d like to,” said Jaskier in a small voice. “I’d like to know more.”

“Too fucking bad,” said Yennefer, but she breathed a shaky exhale and some of the stiffness left her shoulders. When she spoke again, her words had lost their bite, anger slackening. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, you fool.”

Sucking in a breath, he mustered all his courage to reach for her, touching her hand with the very tips of his fingers.

She did not pull away from him, did not move. Emboldened, he pressed his fingers between hers. Her hands were small, the palms smooth and uncalloused. His own hand felt too large and too rough in comparison, his knuckles stretching the spaces between her fingers.

Still, she did attempt to pull free, staring at him with an expression as inscrutable as always.

He shuffled to his knees on the bed, a palm braced on the sheets near her folded knees, his head lowered. Wholly expecting to be destroyed by her wrath in the next breath, he made peace with his impending untimely end as he drew her hand close, tipping her palm toward him to press his lips to the ugly line of scarring on her upturned wrist.

He allowed himself to look up at her as he did so, daring her to peer into his thoughts.

 _You are so beautiful,_ he thought very loudly. _And terrifyingly powerful and deviously clever and frustratingly stubborn, and everything about you is an enigma wrapped in a mystery that I shouldn’t want to solve. And yet. Oh, and yet._

He felt no prickle along his scalp. She did not look.

For a beat of held breath, Yennefer allowed his touch, met his eyes, before tugging her fingers from his and returning to tug at his hair. She tipped his head back, and he offered no resistance, knowing the show of submission he must make on his hands and knees before her, his throat bared.

“You’re completely crazy,” she said.

“Can’t deny that,” Jaskier said. “But so are you.”

“I would ruin you, bard,” she said. It sounded more like a threat than a concern. A shiver ran down his spine as he realized that he would let her.

“Please do,” he whispered, voice cracking.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” she repeated.

“I do,” he said. “I do know.”

“You _don’t_. You don’t know what you want.”

Her fingernails stung against his scalp.

“I want this,” he said. “I want you.”

“No,” said Yennefer. Jaskier’s neck was beginning to ache, but he made no move to pull away.

“Why not? What do you have to lose?”

“Nothing,” she said. “And not a thing to gain either. You’ll be back on the road to find your Witcher tomorrow. Tell me, poet, what would you do if he finally saw you as you wished? Would you grovel at his feet instead of mine?”

“Well,” said Jaskier, swallowing hard.

“There’s the truth. That’s answer enough,” she said. Her tone was cold. Frigid. “You only want me at all, because the Witcher won’t have you.”

“No, that’s not--”

“I have seen inside your head, bard,” said Yennefer. “I know that your deepest fear is that he will grow tired of your company and toss you aside. You cannot lie to me. You cannot pretend that you would dare offer yourself like this if he was willing.”

“But he isn’t,” said Jaskier and winced as he realized he had all but agreed with her.

He thought of Geralt who was so different from her, and yet, in many ways the same. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he was a fool.

“You’ve long overstayed your welcome,” said Yennefer. “It’s time to put an end to this.”

Her words made something in him ache. He longed to touch her spill of dark hair. He longed to kiss her.

Instead, he nodded. He lifted a hand to brush his fingers along her thigh, and she allowed the touch.

“One last time, then,” he said. “And I’ll go in the morning.”

Yennefer pushed him back into the bed, a hand splayed against his sternum, palm digging down hard as she straddled him to sink back down onto his stiffening cock. He groaned at the seeping pleasure that warmed through his belly as he slipped slowly inside her. Pressing his fingers into the dark hair between her legs, he brought her slowly to her own pleasure as she shifted above him. The soft sigh that fell from her lips as her orgasm shivered through her bloomed a deeper heat through his chest.

Though Jaskier pleaded with his own body to do so, he could not last as long as he wished, finishing inside her with a stutter of his hips.

For a moment, Yennefer allowed him to cling to her, face pressed beneath her breasts as his breathing slowed.

Then, she lifted herself from him and turned away.

* * *

When he woke, the sky had just begun to blush above Novigrad, chimneys streaking grey smoke across the lilac dawn, and Yennefer was gone. The air had taken on a deeper chill than it had all winter.

He dressed in the unnatural quiet of the apartment, took up his pack and slung his lute over his shoulder.

He paused on the threshold to look back and caught the faintest whiff of her scent, sickly sweet and floral.

 _Good riddance,_ he thought bitterly and turned away. _Good fucking riddance, and that’s the end of that._

* * *

Except that it wasn’t, of course.

He knew that it wasn't the end even as he closed the rusted gate behind him at the bottom of the stone stairwell and stole out of the covered alleyway.

He saw a vision of her like an imprint in his mind.

Most regretfully, Jaskier knew it was not the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _and they were roommates...... oh my god, they were roommates_


	3. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** this chapter contains a fair amount of unnegotiated and poorly negotiated kink. also sexy death threats, briefly imagined torture and killing, hair pulling, an explicit caning/beating roleplay scene that goes a bit farther than is safe or consensual, emotional constipation, evil schemes, semi-public and blatantly public sex, threatened and brief cock and ball torture, dom/sub overtones that are not explicitly communicated, improper application of safe words, etc
> 
> only yennskier would have me putting "hair pulling" next to "imagined torture and killing" in a list of content warnings

6

Rinde had been a good gig.

An ethically dubious one, yes, but that had never stopped the Brotherhood, so why should that stop her? Why should she limit herself by bonds of decency when no other mage on the Continent was held to such a standard?

Why should Yennefer allow herself to be bound to anything at all any longer?

It did not take much to coax the people of Rinde into fulfilling their untapped desires. A nudge here, a whisper there, and the rest was their own doing. She had freed them from the fetters that enchained them. Knocked the scales from their eyes. Allowed them to dare to fumble toward greater heights than the limits of societal propriety would ever have allowed.

It had been a good gig.

Until the foppish bastard and his Witcher tore it asunder in a very literal sense.

* * *

“Piss off,” Yennefer had said on the floor of the half-destroyed manor house, her limbs tingling in the wake of sexual release. “Or else.”

Thankfully, the bard had made haste to listen, scrabbling up and out of her sight, and she lay a long while letting her breathing slow, listening to the creak and groan of the structure around her.

There was no further sign of the djinn.

If she had not allowed herself to be distracted by portalling the bard to safety, she may have been able to pursue and contain it.

Or maybe not.

The ritual instructions had been less than clear after the initial binding and wish speaking and bodily possession. Yennefer had been planning on winging it.

No matter. The bard had no doubt wasted his last wish on some trivial nothing. Perhaps _I wish very badly to leave this place forever_ or _I wish my cock no longer had that unsightly mole_. She didn’t quite care.

It had been a half-baked, impulsive plan in the first place. Bound not to come to fruition. Oh well. She would find some other method of restoring what had been taken from her.

 _That’s the end of that, then_ , she thought. The end of a very good gig and of a very strange night.

Good riddance to corrupt, pot-bellied mayors and to this drafty old house and to the sweet stone fruits in the orchard soon to ripen.

Good riddance to foolish mutants who dredged arcane beings out of ponds for use as sleep aids.

Especially good riddance to one flamboyant, simpering fool of a half-dead minstrel who she had inexplicably just indulged in several rounds of not horrible sex with.

Shaking off her momentary lapse in judgment, Yennefer readied to leave the house behind. From somewhere in the distance, she could hear the mayor’s voice rising, shouting about insurance premiums and stipulations on magical damage.

A shudder ran down her spine at the very thought of something so dull.

Time to be off.

That was the end of that.

* * *

The hellish little troubadour reappeared with a vengeance.

He popped into her preferred drinking locales in every other swill of a town she stopped in. He slithered between her borrowed sheets. He even slipped into her dreams at times, the images jumbled and strange. A pitcher of cider. A barren mountainside tinged ochre with evening light. A burgundy rose, blood dripping from its thorns. The coast. A song sung about her eyes, reverent as a hymn.

The images rippled with the same liquid quality as memory, and she knew what they were. Memories that hadn’t happened yet. Visions of moments yet to come.

Nonsense, all of it.

It didn’t make a lick of sense.

Then, Yennefer had never been one for prophecy. She remembered sitting through endlessly tedious lectures at Aretuza on omens and premonitions and augury and all the sorts of bizarre prognostications that could be called upon to attempt to discern the future.

There was divination through squinting at shadowed glass and peering into puddles in moist caves and discerning shapes in swarms of starlings and staring through a telescope at the shifting of the planets and even planting two neat rows of onions in the garden to see which ones sprouted first.

Horse shit. Every bit of it. A load of poppycock. A waste of time.

She didn’t squander any energy on trying to draw out meaning from her dreams, because she had seen the foul ways that prophesy could twist and bind and take root in ways most unexpected and terrible. She didn’t care to fuck around with fortune-telling or Destiny or anything that sought to bind her onto one set path through life.

Being cowed into paying attention to fortunes and auspices and portents was the stuff of menfolk. Women like her made their own futures.

If it was to happen, it would happen. And if she wished something else to happen instead, she would make it so.

Sometimes, the images came to her when she was awake, as clear as one of her own memories. Sometimes, she blinked and saw him, a ridiculous jester of a man dolled up in impractical silks with a rakish grin and a jaunty hitch to his step. The visions weren’t even _fun_. Just him yowling over his elven instrument at a tavern for coin, kissing a blushing lady’s hand, standing on a rooftop grinning at ballooning clouds, waving and cooing at a babe in a grandmother’s arms.

The universe could try showing her something exciting if it was going to continue to deliver these unwanted impressions of him.

Something with plot.

Or something she could pleasure herself to at the very least.

* * *

Yennefer knew one of her fellows had no doubt sold the bard some trick or another that not only inspired these grim visions but also brought them to run across one another at alarming frequency.

Problem being that she didn’t care to have anything even resembling a conversation with anything resembling a mage. Tissaia’s unwanted visit in Rinde had been more than enough dialogue with her kind for the foreseeable future.

Give her a decade or so and maybe she would feel up to chatting with the lowly local village witch. Another decade for anyone associated with the Brotherhood.

Until then? Fuck it. She was on her own.

* * *

She locked eyes with the troubadour across the crowded hubbub of Novigrad’s market.

He looked as completely silly as usual. A pastel blue doublet too pale for his complexion, hair touched by summer highlights and face darkened with freckles. He tried to hide his pleasure when he saw her, putting on an air of disdain as he flounced to her side, selected an overripe fruit from a vendor’s cart, and promptly dribbled peach juice all down his front.

Idiot.

Before she could stop herself, she tugged on his collar to right the stain. He would only have whined about it all day, she told herself. She was not being friendly.

She had information to extract.

The little idiot didn’t even require drugging or copious baiting or other dubious forms of getting him where she wanted him.

Yennefer invited him up to her apartments, and he followed.

She wondered not for the first time and not for the last how he had managed to make it to the ripe old age of-- well, she couldn’t even guess at his age. He looked to be in his early thirties but behaved enough like a petulant child that he could be years younger or older. Regardless, she had no idea how the ridiculous man had survived past infancy.

Or maybe the problems had started there.

At some point, his overworked nursemaid had clearly dropped the poor sod on his noggin, and that explained the unfortunate state of his brain well enough.

* * *

A vision came to her.

The bard with his powder blue silks blurring into the overcast sky over Novigrad’s bleak harbor, leaning on a storm-beaten pier.

Giving into a hunch, she closed her eyes and allowed whatever it was to pull her toward him, feeling the tether as something that hooked behind her navel and tugged.

When she blinked open her eyes, she stood on said pier, looking out at the bard. He appeared just as she had seen him. Shoulders hunched over the railing, chestnut hair ruffled by a breeze off the sea, weight shifted to one leg and the other crooked up in a way that artfully showed off his butter-soft, fine leather boots to passersby.

Her eyes dragged up the tempting curve of his calf. How absurd that any self-respecting man would have pretty calves of all things and willfully show them off.

She spared a moment to consider the warring temptations of magically dunking him in the ocean or of pressing a hand to the small of his back to whisper how very much she liked his fine, leather boots but would like even more to see him in _only_ said boots.

Both would leave him sputtering and out of sorts, and that was just how she preferred him. He was so very easy to fluster and enrage. It sent a delicious thrill of satisfaction through her every time, knowing the control she had over him.

She did not toss him into the surf and did not whisper any seductions. Not today. She had business to settle.

When she leaned beside him, he did not startle. He laughed when he saw her. He smiled that stupid, unabashed, lopsided grin.

_Shit._

Yennefer knew this was no simple tracking spell or binding charm. This was something much messier and much, much worse.

It would take more than a quick afternoon to parse out.

Maybe even the whole damn season.

* * *

Something happened in Novigrad that winter.

She indulged more than she should have, perhaps. She allowed the poet into her bed one time too many. In attempting to puzzle out what bound them, she mistakenly let him slip close. Gave him the wrong idea.

In the moonlight, his expression went soft and eager, tipped up to look at her. Hopeful. Adoring. Reverent.

 _Oh no,_ she thought and pulled at his hair until all she saw was the pulse jumping in the unguarded line of his throat. She did not have time for a foolish man who thought he could tame and unspool and discover her heartaches and traumas and weaknesses.

She did not have time to be nice about it. Better to cut him off clean and sharp so it all healed quickly.

She woke well before dawn and rose from bed and paused on the threshold of the bedroom to watch him sleeping, her crimson sheets pooled around his naked body. She would miss seeing him like that, she thought. He was easy on the eyes, broad in places and slender in others, dark curls of body hair a strange contrast to his dreadfully pale skin and feminine habits.

He sprawled across the bed like he had not a care in the world, like it didn’t matter at all that he lay exposed and vulnerable in her bed. She could gut him as he slept. She could cut his throat and not a single stain would show on her linens to reveal the terrible deed.

She could wake him with her lips stretched around his cock and bring him right to the edge of completion before he finally woke with a shuddering gasp. She knew this because she had done so before.

She did not stoop to doing so again. It was over. Their time here was through.

Yennefer spared one last look back at him spread out in her crimson sheets and scowled.

Red was not his color.

* * *

Yennefer knew that it wasn’t over.

She knew even as she turned away and pulled a portal over herself.

She saw him, flushed and grinning, an imprint in her thoughts that would not fade.

* * *

A fortnight later, she met his eyes across a muted town square, the gnarled apple tree at its center in full bloom, pale-white petals scattering across the crooked flagstones.

She should have frowned at him and turned away and continued on her business. Except that most of her business these days ended up tangled up with him. She knew running from it would do no good at all. Perhaps if she steadfastly refused to acknowledge the circumstances of their parting, he would do the same and wouldn’t do anything silly and annoying like get emotional about it.

Petals caught in his hair as he approached her, head tipped with appraisal. He looked tentative at first and then more sure. What did he read in her expression that put that confident lurch in his step?

“Still fucked?” he asked as he met her beneath the boughs of the apple tree.

“Unfortunately.”

“Haven’t figured out how to un-fuck us yet?”

“No,” said Yennefer.

“Pah, stumped the all-powerful sorceress? Melitele help us all.”

“I’m working on it,” she said. “Don’t look so smug.”

“I’m not smug. You think I want to be stuck with you for good? I really, really don’t want to be stuck with you.”

“You’re not stuck with me for good. It’s temporary.”

“You know that for sure?”

“No,” she said. “But even if it isn’t, I’ll make it temporary.”

“And in the meantime?” asked the bard. He batted his eyes at her in a manner that he certainly seemed to think was awfully charming and coquettish and not at all infantile. She scoffed.

“No, we are not having sex again.”

“I promise it won’t be like last time,” he said. “We don’t even have to talk about last time.”

 _Very smart man_ , she thought and then banished said thought far, far away immediately.

“It will be. You aren’t the sort of man who knows how to shut the fuck up when it best serves him.”

“Oh Yennefer,” said Jaskier and caught her hand in his to lean and kiss her knuckles, “don’t fool yourself into thinking you know a thing about me.”

He looked nothing like he had in the moonlight on his hands and knees before her, but she experienced a strange double vision anyway. He pressed their palms together, lips barely brushing the back of her hand, apple blossoms clinging to his fringe and the shoulders of his bottle-green doublet, horribly blue eyes looking with false coyness up the line of her arm.

 _Aw, fuck it_ , thought Yennefer.

And she took him off to bed.

* * *

Said bed was not her own for once, having had no time to procure lodging before running into the poet in the town square. The room was a meager thing off the main wing of an ale-sodden hall, more a cupboard than any sort of suitable quarters, dust shaking down from the ceiling onto the single, lumpy mattress when anyone crossed the floor upstairs.

Yennefer made her opinion of their accommodations clear in the slow and teasing way she dragged things out. It took her a full hour to even take his cock out of his trousers, kneeling between his legs as he writhed on his back and fisted the moth-eaten blankets, her fingers offering just fleeting touches through fabric.

“Come on,” he whined, bucking into her hand as she finally loosened the lacing of his trousers enough to allow the head of his cock to peek through. Her fingertips traced around where it smeared dampness into the dark hair on his belly, avoiding anything but incidental touches. “I know the room’s shit, but I can’t help that. Coin’s not been flowing so freely lately, and we couldn’t find anywhere better.”

She stilled, finger tapping against his navel.

“We?”

She regarded the meager room again, and noticed details she had missed. An extra bag slung by the bard’s. A cluster of empty bottles and crumbs of herbs on the dresser. A black tunic folded on a corner chair.

“Yeah, me and Geralt.”

“You’re sharing the room with him.”

“Yeah, I managed to find him in barely a week this time, and it’s early in the season so like I said, coin’s tight but--”

“You’re sharing a room that only has the one bed.”

“Yeah? Doesn’t mean anything. We do it all the time. Coin’s tight, and beggars can’t be--”

“The one bed that we are _presently fucking in_.”

The poet huffed with impatience.

“Oi, well first of all, we’re not actually fucking, because all you’ve done so far is be a giant tease. But what’s wrong with that?” he asked. “I didn’t think you had such delicate sensibilities. I didn’t think you’d care what the Witcher thought of you.”

Oh and that did it.

Yennefer didn’t take the time to care if she was playing right into the idiot’s hands. She hitched up her skirt, yanked down his trousers, and proceeded to show him just how very little she cared about what anyone thought of her.

* * *

Upon leaving the room a few hours later, she found the Witcher leaning in the hallway, arms crossed and expression sour.

“Geralt,” she said with a nod. She adjusted the neckline of her dress and lifted her chin, daring him to say anything untoward.

“Yennefer,” said the Witcher and straightened up to block the hallway, feet planted wide and shoulders very broad indeed.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a moment,” said Yennefer. He made no move to let her through.

“What’s your angle with the bard, Yennefer?” he asked. “What are you after?”

“Orgasms, mostly,” she said. Geralt’s jaw twitched.

“I thought you--”

“If you dare say ‘I thought you better than this’, I will unmake you, Witcher.”

“Thought you had tired of toying with him,” continued Geralt. “He seemed to think so.”

“You thought wrong,” said Yennefer. “Though he does his best to play at being one, the bard is not a child. You’re not his keeper. You have no say in who he chooses to bed.”

“Have some say when it’s my bed.”

“It’s a rented bed. And a completely shitty one.”

“Leave him alone, Yennefer,” said the mutant, stern and commanding. Anyone else would have floundered under such a look. Yennefer offered a fleeting, dangerous smile.

“Does he know he has his very own guard dog?” she asked. “What will you do if I refuse?”

Geralt tightened his jaw, amber eyes bright even in the dimly lit hallway, but he stepped aside to let her stride past him, dress swishing against her legs.

“Leave him be,” he repeated.

“Him first,” said Yennefer.

The Witcher groaned.

7

“You wrote another song about me,” said Yennefer, catching the bard by the arm in a crowded tavern. He had just finished a performance with said song as a last, bittersweet closing number and was flushed with exertion, sweat slicking the hair along his temples.

“Nope. No. No such songs here.”

“' _The violet eyes and lilac sky / her potent magic drains me dry'_ ,” she drawled. “Is that referring to oh… some other mage you’ve fucked?”

“Yeah,” said the troubadour. “I’ve had loads of mages. You know me. Revolving door of hot mage sex.”

“Right,” said Yennefer. “No more. Or else.”

“No more mages?”

“No more songs, you little idiot.”

“I can’t simply put a stopper on inspiration, Yennefer. I cannot simply be struck by such vision and turn aside.”

“You can, and you will.”

“Why? I thought the last one was good for business. I cast you as a villain again. Thought you liked that.”

“It’s a love song, bard,” she said. “And a melancholy one. Nothing good comes of melancholy love songs.”

He gasped with affront.

“A _love_ song? Certainly not. Assuredly not.”

“' _My reaching arms can’t hold her tight / she parts from me at morning light_.' In what world is that not a love song?”

“Ah,” he said. “No, no, it’s a yearning song. A very different genre. Easy mistake to make.”

“Hmmm,” she hummed. “So, you yearn for me?”

“Not you. The other mage with which I had a lot of mind-numbingly good sex with who tragically dumped me.”

“Dumping implies that there was a relationship. There was no such thing.”

“And the adoring public doesn’t have to know that,” he said with a wag of his finger. His eyes took on a spark of mischief. “Ah, but Yennefer, I had no idea you paid such close attention to my songs.”

“I don’t. Only the ones about me.”

“You couldn’t have known that this one was about you unless you were paying attention to the lot.”

“So it is about me, then? Thought it was about some other mage.”

“Right. Yes. Some other mage. One of many. One of dozens.”

“Are you two done fucking flirting?” grunted Geralt into his ale beside them. The rest of the tavern crowd parted around the broad form of the Witcher, leaving the three of them standing in a rare pocket without jostling elbows or the press of unwashed bodies. Yennefer could see why the bard stuck close to him at these types of functions. It was awfully convenient.

“That wasn’t flirting,” said Jaskier.

“ _This_ is flirting,” said Yennefer and pressed a hand to palm between the bard’s legs. He squeaked and rocked his hips into the touch, already hard.

Geralt’s stony facial expression did not change.

“Please fuck off and do that somewhere in private before you get us kicked out.”

“The Witcher said please,” Yennefer said against the shell of Jaskier’s ear.

“Let’s say we oblige him,” hummed Jaskier, his lips brushing her jaw.

* * *

They fucked off as far as the secluded nook beneath the stairs that led to the upper rooms. The spot was shadowed and blocked by barrels and crates but hardly private. Anyone could glance through the slats in the wooden stairs and see them there and know what they were up to. Yennefer could whisper a word and the amulet at her throat would draw a curtain of privacy around them.

But where was the fun in that?

The poet fell to his knees before her as she perched on a wooden crate and teased his fingers under the hem of her skirts, easing them up her thighs. His searching hands were a pale contrast against her darker skin, and she parted her legs for him to plant a noisy kiss between them.

“Idiot,” she groaned and rolled her hips against his face, his mouth sliding through the slickness that greeted him, nosing into her hair. “Does the other mage enjoy such childishness?”

“The other mage is most appreciative,” said Jaskier and began to lave his tongue along her in earnest, uncaring of the vulgar sounds he made in doing so or the mess that saliva and slick made of his chin.

“You’re utterly shameless.”

“You like it,” he said, cocky grin pressed into her inner thigh.

“I like when your mouth is occupied with anything other than speaking,” she said and pulled him back to her cunt.

* * *

In the shadows beneath the stairs, the poet rose to stand between her spread legs, her breath ragged in the wake of the second orgasm he had brought her to by the work of his tongue.

“You think you get to fuck me now?” she breathed as his hands warmed over her exposed thighs. He looked at her with pupils blown wide, lips parted, gaze provocative and dark, and for once, he said nothing, fingers tightening against her legs.

She tugged him forward by the high waistband of his trousers until the line of his clothed erection pressed between her legs, her slick dampening the thin silk, and realized only as she did so that it had never been like this. For all their varied and vigorous times together, she had never allowed them to assume a position that allowed him the majority of control.

Seated on the crate as she was with legs spread, she would be able to do nothing but lean back on her arms as he stood thrusting against her, pinning her still with hands hitched under her legs.

The bustle of the tavern seemed far away but was not, just a handful of stacked crates and the thin slats of the stairs separating them from discovery. Jaskier’s hair brushed against the cobwebbed underside of the stairs as he leaned above her, dragging in a breath as her fingers dug farther into his waistband to sweep along the head of his cock.

“Would you like to have me?” she whispered.

“I would,” he said.

Something rough in his lowered voice drew her to look at him more closely. He seemed uncharacteristically subdued, a quiet she had pinned on their exposed location, but now she saw the unusual somber look in his eyes.

Yennefer thought of the mournful lilt to the song he had sung earlier before the tavern crowd. She thought of his throat bared for her in the moonlight. His white skin against crimson sheets.

He had sung of the dawn that paled over the skies of Novigrad as he woke alone, and his voice had cracked on a rising octave, his eyes closed as though lost in a memory.

“That other mage,” said Yennefer. She held his eyes, very blue even in the dim lighting, strangely serious. “Would you have her instead?”

“No,” said Jaskier. “She wouldn’t have me.”

Yennefer tucked her hand into his trousers and drew him out, even as she stood and allowed her skirts to fall to cover herself. She tightened her fingers along his length, no longer teasing, holding him with the shifting pressure that she knew he preferred. He gripped at her shoulders, breath hitching on low groans.

“Hush,” she said. “Be quiet now.”

He obeyed, though she didn’t say whether she meant his moaning or his words. After he spilled with a whimper into her hands, he said no more to her that night.

It was a cruelty to continue this as it was, she knew.

Yennefer was not kind enough to stop.

* * *

When she met him a week later in a piddling scrap of a village somewhere in Temeria, none of that sober quiet remained. He was playing some game that involved sticks and pebbles with the village children, and he grinned when he saw her.

“Oi, Yennefer!” he called. “Come play stones and ladders with us!”

“What would possibly make you think that I want to do that?”

One of the dusty, freckled children separated from the rabble to tug at the hem of her black dress.

“Hello there,” she said with an awkward grimace. The doe-eyed creature blinked up at her. She never had the foggiest idea how to interact with children.

“Don’t tell me,” said Jaskier, “that you don’t know how to play stones and ladders.”

“Of course I do.”

“Ah but we made it up this morning!”

She wondered where the childrens’ parents were and whether they would be pleased to find their spawn cavorting with the likes of the traveling minstrel. Though more than likely the parents didn’t give a shit about the whereabouts of their drooling crotch goblins unless they had some pressing need of them.

“I’m going to get a drink,” said Yennefer and continued down the hard-packed dirt lane that ran through the village toward its only tavern.

“It’s not even midday,” called the bard after her, and she rolled her eyes.

“I’m an adult,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll drink whenever I wish. And I don’t play children’s games.”

* * *

She found the Witcher in the tavern, dust motes streaming through the filthy windows. He bought her a drink.

“You’re following us?” he asked into his own mug of ale as she pulled a face at the sour flavor. Sometimes she got lucky and these shithole little towns had expert and experimental brewers, and other times she got slop.

“It’s complicated,” she said.

“Is he really that good of a lay?” He huffed out a laugh.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never bedded him?” she asked, though she knew the answer. Yennefer was curious what she could needle him into saying.

All amusement fled from his expression.

“No,” he said. “I’m sure he’s told you as much.”

“We don’t have as many heart to hearts as you seem to think,” she said and grimaced through a long chug from her ale. “I’m sure you know he’s interested.”

Geralt tipped his head to look at her.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Not interested?”

“No," he said. "You're after something. What is it?"

“Answers.”

“And the question?”

“Mmm,” she hummed. “That’s the thing. Don’t quite know that either.”

“That doesn’t really make sense, Yennefer.”

“Have the bard explain it to you.”

“Explain what?”

“Our predicament.”

“He’s tried. I havethe feeling he doesn’t get it either.”

“We’re bound together. By mysterious forces beyond our control.”

He snorted. “You too?”

Her eyes narrowed, and he cursed under his breath.

“Who are you bound to, Witcher?”

He looked like he would rather be anywhere but in a shoddy tavern at midday revealing these things to her.

“A child,” he gritted out. “A princess. Of surprise. Figured the bard would have told you that one.”

“Like I said. Not much time for heart to hearts.”

“Right. Just fucking in inappropriate places.”

“Didn’t take you for a prude.”

“You’re using him.”

“Consensually,” she drawled. “Equally.”

“There’s nothing equal about it, Yennefer.”

“As if you’re any better. How long has he fumbled after you now?”

“That’s his choice.”

“As I said. Consensual.”

The two of them looked at one another for a long moment. Yennefer had the feeling that, given different circumstances, the Witcher could have proven quite interesting indeed. But the fleeting fascination with him she had experienced in Rinde had long dissipated.

He was simple. An ordinary man who life had hardened into a weapon. Besides his mutations, the only unusual thing about him was the foppish character who dogged him across the Continent singing his praises. If he did not have those striking eyes and hair white as bone, he would have borne some lord’s banner, ridden some noble steed, and went to an early grave with honor but in near anonymity. Dull. Simple.

She wondered what the poet saw in him.

“For the ale,” she said and tossed a coin that he caught flat against his chest. It amused her to see how practiced he seemed at doing so. The bard had likely not meant the words of his song so literally, but as it happened, he had a way of inspiring all sorts of unintended nonsense.

* * *

She blinked into the sunlight outside the tavern to find the bard still nestled in a tangle of rowdy village children.

She strode with purpose across the sparse grass and settled cross-legged in the dirt. Jaskier blinked at her.

“What are the rules?” she asked, picking up a twig and a polished pebble.

“Ah,” he said. “Actually, there are none. It’s mostly just hitting stones about. Children love it.”

“The Witcher has a Child Surprise.”

“Oh, how’d you get him to tell you that one? He’s very fussy about that,” said Jaskier, ignoring the grimy little girl that had taken to scrabbling up his shoulders and clinging. “It was a bit my fault. Saved some royals at a feast I dragged him to. Ended up with a princess.”

“Does he know her?”

“Nope! And doesn’t want to.”

“He can’t avoid her forever. That’s not how those things work.”

“Is this like that? You and I?”

“No,” said Yennefer. A young boy knocked a stone into the air that bounced off her knee. She fought her instinct to glower. “Maybe.”

“Well, keep working on figuring that out. I’ll keep doing what I do best.”

“Which is?”

He grinned deviously.

“Yennefer’s the Queen of the Ladders!” he hollered, and to her horror, the entire giggling mass of children ascended upon her with the seeming intent to cling to any available open body part and clamber on top of her.

“What sort of game is this, bard?” she shouted, voice tinged with outrage, drowning in half-feral village children.

“A very silly one,” he said and had the good sense to leap up and flee. Before she could extract the writhing mess of children from her body, he was long gone.

Which was just as well.

She knew she would see him again very soon, after all.

8

“Here,” said the poet and pressed a slender willow branch into her hand, a flexible rod the length of her arm and thickness of her thumb.

“What’s this?” Yennefer asked.

Another town, another shit room in a shit inn. The Witcher off on a contract. This one had two beds at least, though the mattress was so narrow and lumpy that they had chosen to lay a blanket down on the floor for their activities instead. She had been content to sprawl naked on her back beside him a while after the first round, thoroughly fucked out, but Jaskier, of course, was up to something.

“It’s a switch,” he said.

“I can see that. What’s it for?”

He kneeled before her, softening his features in an attempt at blue-eyed, straight-faced innocence.

“For my insolence.”

Her eyebrows rose to her hairline.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, it’s that kind of switch.”

“Well, what other kind of switch is there?”

“The kind that isn’t so pleasurable.”

Her father had kept a switch hung above the barn door, used most often for encouraging ornery sows and rambunctious suckling pigs, but it saw its fair share of use lashed against the backs of her thighs over one fuck-up or another.

“Ah, bad memories? Sorry, I can--”

She curled her fingers around the branch and pulled it from his grasp.

“Too late,” she said. “You’ve already brought it up, and now you have to follow through.”

“You mean, _you_ have to follow through.”

“Cheeky bastard,” she said and sat up to tap the switch against his bare hip.

“Would you say… insolent?”

“Where did you even get this?” she asked, and he shrugged.

“Been here a few days. The innkeeper’s daughter is quite the character.”

“Stay away from her while I’m here. I’ll not be tossed out on my ass for your… insolence.”

This village had proven too shit for dredging up anything resembling a decent place to stay. Plus, crashing with the bard a day or two saved her some coin and undue effort.

“Not jealous, then?” he asked. He touched his fingertips along the smooth switch that still rested against his hip. “No other reason to tell me to stay away from the innkeeper’s daughter?”

“You want me to tell you that I’m the only one you can fuck?”

“Eugh, no,” he shivered. “I’d never last a week. I’d perish in blue-balled agony.” He perked up. “Oh, unless you’d like to punish me over my inevitable disobedience?”

“This was your idea,” said Yennefer. “You’re the one with the switch and the death wish.”

“Actually, you’re now the one with the switch.”

She swatted said switch sharply against his hip.

“Ouch,” he yelped and wiggled away.

“That was nothing. I barely touched you.”

“You didn’t give me any warning!”

“This was your idea, remember that. You started this.”

He stuck out his tongue at her. She struck the end of the switch against his upper thigh.

“We’re doing this, then?”

“No, I’m simply thwacking you with a twig for my own amusement.”

“Isn’t that the point? Your amusement?”

“I assumed it was for your amusement, you little idiot. You wanted this.”

“You’re the one who’s always with the ‘ _bad and naughty, Jaskier. Do as I say, Jaskier. Bad boy_ ’.” His impression of her shifted his voice several squeaky octaves.

“I have never said that. When have I ever sounded like that?”

“All the time. You’re very bossy.”

“Well you’re very… insolent.”

She pressed the end of the switch along his jaw and tipped his chin up toward her. He looked like someone who had been rolling around on a blanket spread on dusty floorboards for the past hour. His hair stood half on end, and he blinked at her in wide-eyed anticipation, hands fisted on his bare thighs. As she regarded him, his soft cock began to twitch back into hardness.

He wet his lips with a slow flick of his tongue.

“How do you want me?” he asked, and that sent an unexpected pulse of heat low into her belly. She dragged the switch down his neck, throat bobbing as he swallowed.

He offered this willingly to her. She had never given him any reason to trust that she would not take unpleasant advantage, and still, he offered it.

Yennefer had not done something like this before, not so explicitly. The pain she inflicted occurred in the heat of the moment.

Not at request. Not with consent freely given.

The bard likely didn’t even know what he was asking for.

“I could hurt you,” she said. She couldn't say whether she offered those words as a warning or a suggestion.

“Not too bad,” he said. “Wouldn’t break the skin. ”

“Still,” she said, dragging the end of the switch down into his dark chest hair. “It will bruise.”

“Had worse.”

She considered him, tapping the slender branch against his sternum. His blue eyes met hers, open and defiant. He did not look afraid, his shoulders relaxed and erection rising between his legs as he sat on his knees before her.

“Has the innkeeper’s daughter used this on you?” Yennefer asked.

He shook his head.

“Mmmm, other way around,” he said. “Never been on this end of things.”

She considered that a moment. Imagined this same man who quivered submissive before her in a very different role with the innkeeper’s daughter. With other women.

“Is she as much of a brat as you?”

“Oh, not by half,” said Jaskier with a wink.

She drew the switch down his trembling chest. The poet’s dark body hair went all the way down, thickening along his navel and across his thighs. He had none of the toned muscle of his traveling companion, his skin pale and unmarked, but his body was not as slim and dainty as was expected by his frilly lace and silks. There was a breadth to his shoulders, a strength to his thighs.

She could admit to herself that the contrast piqued her interest. The smooth, unscarred planes of his skin darkened with hair. The softness of his belly and the flex of his back. The feminine turn of his lips and the sharp line of his jaw.

 _How do you want me?_ he had asked.

The question stirred an uncomfortable tightness in her breast.

“Put your arms on the mattress. Back to me,” she said, tapping his waist with the switch until he turned and obeyed.

He folded his elbows to lean against the bed, knees on the creaking floorboards, and she was presented with a view of the long line of his freckled back and not horrible backside. He sported body hair here as well, scattered across his shoulders and spreading up from his thighs along said backside in generous curls.

The muscle of his shoulderblades jumped as she tapped the switch along his upper thighs, testing.

“Ooh, I can take more than that,” said Jaskier and allowed his spine to hollow in an exaggerated backwards thrust of his bottom.

“Of course you can, idiot. A newborn chick could take more than that,” huffed Yennefer. “I’m just lining up the best angle.”

She shuffled behind him until she could see his face even as he bent forward on his arms and continued tapping here and there with irregular sharp raps to his hips, his thighs, his ass. He drew sharp breaths in anticipation of more each time, but she stayed her hand.

“Not getting any younger here,” he said, and her next blow struck with more purpose along his upper thigh. He groaned.

“And I’m getting the feeling that giving you what you want isn’t much of an effective punishment.”

“It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be _fun_.”

“What’s fun about a caning?” she asked, striking again just at the start of the swell of his ass. Barely hard enough to twinge, and yet, the bard moaned dramatically.

“I don’t know, what’s fun about threatening me with bodily harm?” he gasped.

“Nothing. But it gets results.”

“Don’t lie, Yennefer. Makes you all hot and bothered to see me tremble in fear.”

“Not exactly wrong,” she said, because he wasn’t. Though she thought her desires a fair bit more complicated than simply enjoying inspiring fear in him. It was not the fear. The little bastard was mostly fearless anyway, if only in the sense that he was too stupid to recognize danger. “But you’re not afraid.”

“No, I’m _bored_ ,” he whined, looking over his shoulder at her with hips wriggling back against the willow branch in some ridiculous show of a come on. The erection that hung between his legs belied his interest.

It was not the fear that interested her.

She thrilled to have him in the palm of her hand, pinned and squirming. She thrilled to feel her own power over him. Her tightening control.

In a quick movement, she shifted the switch to her other hand and brought it up toward his belly rather than his back. The slim length of wood pressed his cock up against his stomach and held there.

Jaskier went very still.

“Still bored?” she asked, and he shook his head, swallowing hard.

She tapped once, bumping the switch along the underside of his cock, and he hissed in a breath.

 _I could hurt you,_ she thought and considered it a moment. Imagined the sounds that would twist from his throat if she struck him with more force. She could hurt him.

He looked back at her, his ruffled fringe fallen across his forehead, one wide, blue eye peering back to meet hers. And nodded.

A shiver ran down her spine.

The switch rolled easily back into her other hand and swung hard and fast against Jaskier’s upper thigh with a crack.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” he choked, and she did not give him time to relax between the first blow and the next. The switch cracked. Lower this time, where she knew the pain sharpened along the sensitive tendons at the back of his leg. He jerked forward, shoulders crumpling, forehead pressed down into the bed.

“Having fun?” she asked, and the little brat turned his face against his folded arms and dared to stretch his mouth open in a drawn out yawn.

“Bit of a snooze fest,” he said. The flush across his cheeks and stutter of his breath betrayed him. “That all you got?”

She turned her wrist to bring the switch down at a different angle along his backside, then once more across the same spot.

He cried out, and his body shuddered, his mouth panting open against his arms.

 _I could hurt him and I don’t care_ , she thought.

A blow straight across the meat of his ass.

_But some part of him trusts me. Because he is an idiot with no sense of self-preservation._

And another. The pale skin quickly reddened.

_I don’t care about that either. I don’t care that he trusts me._

Another blow, and his cries strangled on the verge of sobs.

_I don’t care if this is cruel. Any of this. He should know better by now, and I don’t fucking care._

“Hnnnngh,” he grunted and cracked a watery eye to look back at her, managing a faltering cheeky grin. “Other mage hit harder.”

“You little shit,” said Yennefer and fumbled the switch to smack a flat palm against his backside. Jaskier yelped. “Pity the other mage didn’t knock some sense into you.”

“I’d be no fun with sense,” he said. “I’d be a complete bore.”

“And my life would be better for it,” she said.

She realized belatedly that her hand had slipped to rest against the soft curve of his ass, her fingers spread across the give of the round cheek. The skin burned hot along the fresh, raised welts that crossed it.

“It would be a bore,” said Jaskier and pressed back into her hand. He barely winced as her thumbnail caught on the heated skin.

“Is that it, then?” asked Yennefer. “Seems a bit anticlimactic.”

“Still could be a climax,” said Jaskier with a pointed wiggle of his hips.

Reaching around him, she found his cock half-hard between his legs.

She leaned behind him, pelvis brushing against his not so terrible bottom, and brought him off like that. One hand curled around his cock and the other tracing the marks she had left.

 _How do you want me?_ he had asked, and Yennefer thought maybe like this, if at all. His breath gone ragged, and his face pressed into the mattress. The muscles in his back quivering. His ears pinked up with exertion.

Pinned flat beneath her palm.

Unable to squirm free.

9

“Geralt says we need a safe word.”

Yennefer snorted.

“What does he know about anything like that? He looks like the sort of man who would thank a whore for letting him rut against her leg.”

“Rude,” said Jaskier. “Though not… strictly wrong.”

“And since when is your sex life his business?”

“Since it usually ends up his business. I had bruises on my ass for weeks after last time.”

“And how is that his-- nevermind, I don’t care,” she said. She had mostly given up on understanding their inexplicable relationship.

“Chamomile,” said Jaskier simply, as though that meant anything to her at all. “Also, couldn’t sit right for a week.”

“We don’t need a safe word. I can see inside your head, remember?”

“Not as much recently,” said the bard, tapping his temple. “Blissfully Yennefer-free. I can tell.”

“You can’t tell shit bard,” snapped Yennefer, though he was right.

She had avoided dipping uninvited into his thoughts since that last night in Novigrad, moonlight spilling across his pale skin, his eyes bright with something she did not want to put a name to.

She had known what he was thinking without peering inside. She hadn’t wanted to see it.

The bard who sat cross-legged leaning back against the headboard of the luxurious bed in her room of the moment did not look like he was thinking unwelcome and disconcerting thoughts, but better safe than sorry.

“Fine. Whatever. Pick a safe word then.”

“How do I know you’ll listen to it?” he asked.

“You don’t,” she said. “But I’m not a monster.”

“Ehhh. Debatable.”

“Safe word, bard. Now. Pick one.” He opened his mouth, no doubt to blurt out the first inane thing to come to mind. “And don’t blurt out the first inane thing to come to mind. Or I really won’t listen to it. And don't say kumquat." He closed his mouth.

He spent a moment in deep consideration, biting his cheeks.

“Cantaloupe,” he said at last.

Yennefer groaned.

* * *

The only logical thing for the two of them to do after establishing said safe word was to leap post-haste into engaging in highly unsafe sexual activities.

“Here,” said the poet, grasping her wrist as he brought her hand to curl around his throat. Her fingers twitched against the soft skin of his neck.

“Pray tell,” deadpanned Yennefer, her expression blank, “how does one utilize a safe word when being choked of their breath?”

“Ah,” said Jaskier. His hands dropped from her wrist. “Right.”

She gave his windpipe a quick squeeze just to watch his eyes widen comically and then dropped her hand as well.

They stared at one another for a long beat of silence.

Funny how woefully difficult it became to plan ill-advised sexual scenarios. Perhaps that was part of the hesitation.

Off the cuff, spur of the moment, spontaneous flings that dipped into territory warranting the use of a safe word generally did not require this level of prior consideration.

Her skin itched under his gaze.

Perhaps this had been a mistake.

Their strange and persistent interactions had gone smoothly enough in the past without the introduction of a word signalling discomfort. Some part of her still protested that it shouldn’t be happening at such frequency anyway, but that voice had grown smaller of late. If their meetings were to be inevitable, it suited her at least to wheedle some orgasms out of their circumstances.

But choosing a word felt disconcertingly close to accepting that this would continue to happen. To pinning a name on what they were to one another.

“Don’t tell me you of all people have run out of terrible ideas,” she said, instead of thinking about that any longer.

“I am a veritable font of _excellent_ ideas,” said the bard.

“Mmhmm, such as?”

“Um.” He floundered with a wide-armed shrug.

“Time’s up,” said Yennefer and crawled across the bed and into his lap, legs bracketing his waist. She grabbed a hefty fistful of his hair simply because she could, and he squeaked as her lips pressed against his pulsepoint.

“What’s this, then?” he asked. “What’s the plan?”

“No plan,” said Yennefer, kissing down the pale line of his throat. “Plans are dull.”

“Can’t say I disagree. But Geralt thinks--”

Her teeth scraped along his skin, just sharp enough to promise more.

“Fuck what anyone else thinks,” she said into his neck.

He smelled strongly of the honeysuckle fragrance he favored, dabbed under the line of his jaw and washed into his hair. He was in need of a visit to the barber, soft hair tickling her nose. She tightened her fingers in the tufts that lengthened along the scruff of his neck, nails dragging on his scalp.

She bit down on the taut tendon in his neck, quick and unexpected. His breath stuttered.

Seated naked in his lap as she was, she could feel his interest even without a glimpse into his thoughts. Not just by the hard length that bumped against her spread thighs as she shifted back to look at him but by the catch of his breath, the flush that bloomed across his chest and cheekbones, the little wrinkle that formed between his brows.

She knew him, she realized. At least in this. His tells and expressions and shows of pleasure.

 _So does half the Continent_ , she thought. There was nothing subtle about him, every want and worry written clearly on his face.

Through all her years of varied and versatile bedpartners, she had never learned another so well. The worst rub being that she had not sought to know any of it, couldn’t say when she had started cataloguing his small quirks and mannerisms. Didn't intentionally recognize what the depth of the pink flush across his body or the intake of his breath said of his arousal.

And didn't intend to keep track of even more ridiculous and irrelevant things. The softness of his skin that told of recent bathing. The scent of his hair.

 _Simply the proximity,_ she thought. Some product of whatever bound them.

She had had recurring flings but none like this. It inspired something tense and sour in the pit of her stomach.

 _I should put an end to it_ , she thought as her teeth bore down with warning pressure along his jugular, soothing away the sting with licks and sucks.

 _I will put an end to it,_ she thought as she tugged harshly at his scalp. He gripped her bare legs and sucked in a breath.

_I will._

She bit down hard at the juncture of his neck and shoulder and sucked. Her nails dug into the back of his head.

_I must._

“Cantaloupe,” gasped Jaskier.

At once, she released her tight hold on his hair and shuffled back on his thighs, slightly dizzy with the speed at which she did so.

“That wasn’t too much,” she said, scanning his face for anything she had missed. Her hand cupped the back of his neck, a light press of fingers. “I know that wasn’t too much.”

“Where’d you go off to in your head just now?” he asked. She found that she could no longer read his expression. Pleasure, she knew, but this?

“Nowhere,” she lied. “Why use the word? You didn’t want me to stop.”

“Didn’t think you’d do it,” he mumbled, voice quiet in a way that felt unsettling.

“What?”

“Listen.”

The simple word struck something in her. Perhaps the same something that sank tense and sour in her stomach.

“Idiot,” she huffed, her fingerpads smoothing along the soft skin just behind his ear. “I told you. Not a monster.”

“You do threaten me with bodily harm rather frequently.”

“Don’t pretend it’s undeserved,” she said. “Or unappreciated. You get off on threats of bodily harm.”

“I do not!”

“Mmhmm,” she said. “Says the man who still has bruises on his ass from the caning he explicitly asked for.”

“Fair point,” he said. “I just thought--”

Her hand tightened on the back of his neck.

“No more thinking,” said Yennefer. “It’s unbecoming.”

“My apologies, dear lady. I shall endeavor to remain as empty-headed as is befitted to my lowly station.”

“Won’t be difficult for you,” she said, pinching his ear sharply. He yelped.

“Ow! Easy with the claws, you witch.”

“Mmmm, I don’t hear your word.”

She dug said claws back into his scalp with insistent pressure. He jumped at the sudden grip but did not say more, his lips parted on a sigh, his eyes closed, cheeks warmed with an aroused blush. She took his insistent erection in hand, and he groaned, his dark lashes fluttering.

 _No more thinking,_ she thought and moved close to lean against the warmth of his body.

She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat and felt him swallow beneath her lips, thrilled at the leap of his pulse.

She thought no more about anything that night except for the swell of her own arousal, the physical sensations and soft sounds and simple pleasures.

Long after, she lay awake in the midnight room listening to him breathe beside her, her palm spread over the hair that darkened along his chest, fingertips just brushing the vulnerable line of his throat.

She thought nothing at all.

She did not think a single thing.

10

“It’s time you ended this thing with the bard,” said the Witcher. “Final warning.”

“You dare to _threaten_ me,” spat Yennefer. “How typical. You may not be human but you would threaten a woman with violence the same as any other man. How tedious. To attempt to force me to cow to your whims. To deign to think you have the right.”

“I’m not threatening you,” said Geralt with a sigh so deep it rumbled in his chest. Their corner booth was suitably distant from the raucous tavern-goers whose attention was largely turned toward the minstrel peacocking about while strumming bawdy crowd favorites.

“And what, in your esteemed opinion, might be the difference between a threat and a warning?”

“Fine,” he gritted out. “No warning. Only a request.”

“A request that I stop bedding the bard.”

“Yes,” said the Witcher, looking extremely put out at having to endure this conversation.

Yennefer had thought at first it was simply the principle of the thing and some fumbling show of friendship that inspired his vocal resistance. But the Witcher resisted attempts to categorize he and the bard’s relationship as anything resembling friendship.

She didn’t understand it.

“To what end?” she asked. “For what reason? Animosity toward me? Simple petulance? Jealousy?”

Geralt considered her, looking very inhuman indeed as he sat in perfect stillness in the shadows of the corner booth, his sharp eyes and shrewd senses no doubt picked up things that even she did not know or wish to know about herself.

“He will get hurt,” said the Witcher, words as slow as his heartbeat.

“Yes,” said Yennefer. “But as you must be aware, the idiot does not protest.”

“You know I don’t mean physically.”

His gaze held with hers. Across the tavern, she could hear the bard wailing a particularly shrill high note followed by a rush of applause.

“Why do you care?” she asked. “You balk at even the simple insinuation that you two may share friendship.”

“Witchers don’t have friends,” he said. “And neither do mages.”

“Ah, which would be an excellent accusation if your bard and I were friends.”

“Lovers, then.”

“Witchers may limit themselves to whores alone, but you must know mages have scores of lovers. But we’re not lovers, and we're not friends. Simply inconveniently linked at the moment."

“Your connection,” said the Witcher. “You don’t know what it is yet?”

“No,” she said. Alone as she was and cut off from most resources, she had made no real leeway. The problem was complex and seemingly unprecedented. Even the bounds of Fate such as those invoked by the Law of Surprise did not usually involve such persistent and continual orbiting of those bound together.

She could find nothing in any literature she pored over that described the clear imprints of imagery that appeared now and then in her mind, strange glimpses of things to come. The way she only had to think of running across him and do so within the hour.

She could find nothing that explained the tightening in her chest or the sour ache in her stomach.

A realization struck her.

"Oh," she said. "Is this about your Child of Surprise?"

His eyes narrowed.

“It’s dangerous,” said Geralt, his jaw tightening. “You don’t understand it, and yet, you persist in being foolish. You could be playing right into someone’s hands.”

“You know,” said Yennefer, drumming her fingers on the table, “I was planning on putting a stop to it for that very reason.” _Among others_ , she thought, but the Witcher didn’t have to know that. Or perhaps he already did. She could never say for certain how astute those senses were. “But now, because you have asked me ever so nicely, I don’t think I will.”

The Witcher growled.

“Nevermind,” he said. “You two are fucking meant for each other. Too stubborn for your own good.”

She could see the twist of regret on his face as soon as the words left his mouth.

Oh, Yennefer could show him stubbornness, alright. She could be most stubborn indeed.

* * *

The Witcher soon found himself the victim of discovering the two of them in increasingly untoward positions at escalating frequency.

“Are we fucking with Geralt?” asked the bard as she pushed him back into Geralt’s bed for the third time that week rather than the other perfectly good mattress across the room. “Why are we fucking with Geralt?”

“Because he’s a cock,” said Yennefer. She looped her arms under the backs of his knees and dragged him down the bed toward her, tugging his trousers down far enough to kiss along the jut of his hipbone and down his pelvis. Another tug and his very interested cock sprang free. “And I’m proving a point.”

“The point being?”

“That I’m stubborn,” she said and took him into her mouth, and he promptly arched his back and lost the thread of the conversation.

She made certain that the Witcher would return to rumpled and stained linens.

She was nothing if not very good at being stubborn.

* * *

“No, really,” gasped the bard just above a whisper, squirming against the wall as she cupped her hand over the front of his trousers, warming him to full hardness with careful strokes. “Why are we fucking with Geralt?”

The back of the house she pinned him against offered very little in the way of obscuring what they were doing. It was midday in one ordinary town or another, villagers roaming nearby in the lane, sunlight streaming through the rustling branches of the trees that shaded them behind the house.

On the other side of the wall, the Witcher met with a family whose nearby fields appeared plagued by a wraith or some other such ghostly apparition. Yennefer didn’t much care to listen for details.

She was too busy playing at being a ghostly apparition plaguing the Witcher himself.

“We are fucking with Geralt,” said Yennefer in a low voice as her fingers teased along his clothed erection, “because he thinks we should stop fucking.”

“You-- _ah_. But you think we should stop fucking,” said Jaskier.

“That’s beside the point,” she said. She dipped her fingers into his tight waistband to touch the heated skin of his cock. The bard knocked his head back against the wall none too quietly just as she intended.

“The point is… being stubborn?”

She loosened the ties of his trousers to fist around him, drawing her hand up in deliberate strokes.

“The point is that he’s not the boss of me. No one is.”

“Ok,” said Jaskier, face screwed up with shifting pleasure. “Ok, I am not objecting, but also am feeling a little bit like a pawn in one of your evil schemes.”

She pressed her fingernail just so under the head of his cock, and he suppressed a yelp that would give them away by pressing his knuckles against his teeth.

“Not an evil scheme,” hissed Yennefer. “The Witcher thinks continuing this thing between us is foolish.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course it is,” she said, working him in swift strokes with just the right sort of pressure that she knew would bring him close to the edge in short order. “I’m putting an end to it. No more.”

“Yes, yes, just as well, but do me a favor and end it after you’ve finished me off.”

“Sounds reasonable,” she said.

Only, after she finished him off with one last twist of her hand inspiring a choked moan as hot spurts of come spilled over her knuckles, he then became distracted by finishing _her_ off as well, dropping to his knees and under her skirts to press his tongue into the folds between her legs.

Anyone wandering down the village lane who paid them more than a cursory glance would not be fooled by the half-hearted attempts to obscure what was happening beneath her dress. Yennefer panted against the wall of the house, and the shin-length dress did not conceal much of the bard beneath it.

As it was, the only one who caught sight of them was Geralt, who stomped into the back garden as Yennefer came down from a truly marvelous orgasm and Jaskier slipped out from under her dress, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

The Witcher crossed his arms.

“Yennefer’s being stubborn,” remarked Jaskier, hair in disarray and eyes blinking against the bright sun after spending so long shoved under her skirts.

“I’m aware,” drawled Geralt.

Yennefer chose to leave off putting an end to it for another time.

* * *

She did not put an end to things the next time either.

Nor the next.

* * *

Yennefer closed her eyes in the dingy darkness of another borrowed room and saw an image of the poet swell in her thoughts. He looked ridiculous, gay and frivolous and extravagant, feathered cap swept low over one eye and dainty instrument cradled in deft hands as he danced a jig up on the bar. Completely stupid. Foolish. Infuriating.

She blinked open her eyes to the hushed quiet of the inn, the bard breathing beside her. She watched the spread palm that rested across his chest rise and fall with the rhythm of his inhales and exhales.

She tired of the images, the sensations, the memories still to come.

She tired of his bright silks and his brazen flirtations and his loud barks of laughter.

She tired of the ache in her chest.

When she made to extract herself from bed and go, a hand tightened around her wrist.

In the dark of the room, his blue eyes appeared muted, his somber expression seeming ill-suited to his features.

She dared to press into his thoughts for just a moment.

An imprint of herself flared to life, her figure glowing with warm light as dusk seeped onto the veranda in Novigrad. Moonflowers unfurling their milk-white blossoms behind the dark sheen of her hair.

It was not something yet to come. But a genuine memory.

 _You were so beautiful that night_ , thought the poet, and this too could have been a memory.

Except that in the dim light of the room, his hand rose to brush her cheek. They lay side by side on the rented bed but did not touch otherwise, their only point of contact the cup of his fingers against her cheekbone.

She closed her eyes and tipped her face into his hand, lips barely brushing his palm.

 _You are so beautiful,_ Jaskier thought. _Someday soon I am going to slip and tell that to you out loud. I am going to say something foolish, and you will leave me again. I desperately don't want you to leave, but I know you will. I know you will leave.  
_

Yennefer shuttered her mind to him, cutting off his errant thoughts.

She pulled her wrist from his grasp and slipped from the bed. Stepped into her discarded dress and out of the room, not bothering to do up the lacing.

 _I am putting an end to it,_ she thought. _This is me putting an end to it._

She almost didn’t notice the Witcher kneeling in the hallway, lost in meditation.

He cracked an amber eye open when he heard her pull the door shut behind her. The eye glinted unnaturally bright even in the low lighting. Like a cat’s.

“I’ll have you know I'm done being stubborn,” she whispered to him. “That’s the end of that. Good riddance.”

The Witcher said nothing.

Yennefer stole away into the dark.


	4. part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings** for this chapter include mostly the usual inability to communicate beforehand about sexual expectations, a lot of alcohol use, and a scene featuring drug use.

Jaskier had nearly entirely forgotten about the djinn wishes.

The incident itself had faded into the realm of story, as many of his memories did. He had written a rather compelling account of the occurrence and as such could no longer fully remember with clarity what details had really happened and which were his own overembellishment.

He could not remember the exact language of said wishes but knew the first involved a heart-warming and sensual reunion with the voluptuous Countess. The second described the untimely demise of his most hated rival. And the third… well. There the details grew much fuzzier.

How could anyone be expected to retain information when being threatened with death and castration by an unhinged sorceress intent on bringing the whole manor house down around them?

He knew he had shouted something, his words stolen by the fell wind that whipped through the bedroom, but it had been a desperate something, his thoughts half-wild with fear and every muscle clenched in anticipation of his inevitable messy end at the witch’s hands.

So, no. He didn’t remember his last wish.

He figured it didn’t matter so much. Djinns, he decided, were mostly a bust.

He continued to figure it so, putting the lot of it out of his mind, until the muggy, midsummer day when the Countess de Stael strode down the sweeping steps of her summer palace in northern Redania and welcomed him with open arms and very little clothing indeed.

* * *

The Countess, by the bountiful blessings of the gods, was not fully naked so much as mostly naked, sporting a new style of bathing clothes popular in the far south.

Scraps of fabric covered her full breasts and ample bottom and not much else, her tanned legs and the dimpled curves of her stomach and hips on full display. She carried a plush bathing towel over her shoulder, an entourage of similarly clad younger women strolling down the stairs behind her.

As was her custom when estranged for the summers from her husband, the Count de Stael, there were no men at all anywhere on the palace grounds. Besides Jaskier, of course.

Even the armored guards who had met him at the gate and escorted him up the winding, forested lane that ended at the palace steps were women. Broad-shouldered women with close-shorn hair and mean features but undeniably women.

The Countess stopped a few steps from the bottom to peer down her nose at him. It was the only way she could ever hope to peer down her nose at anyone, given how very short she was.

“I didn’t invite you here to gawk,” she said, cocking a voluptuous hip.

It was not uncommon that he be met by a sharply-dressed courier in some town or another with a letter from the Countess. Often an invitation to one abode or another that he did not always entertain and sometimes simply brief letters with oddly shrewd life advice. How she always seemed to know just where to find him across the whole broad scope of the Continent or what fears were plaguing him at that very moment that required easing, he could not say.

“Er… right,” asked Jaskier, adjusting the strap of his lute case where it dug into his shoulder, feeling very overdressed and out of sorts in his sweat-stained travel clothes. “Why did you invite me here, then?”

The Countess shrugged, her long waves of blonde hair swaying across her bronzed shoulders as she did so. She was not young by any means, perhaps nearing seventy, but creams and charms and potions kept her looking fifty at the oldest.

Jaskier had known her since his early days of fumbling artistry, a fresh-faced noble boy who molded like putty in the deft hands of the Countess. It had been her supple thighs and shapely bosom that taught him all sorts of things about _metaphor_ indeed.

“I required entertainment,” said the Countess. “And I wanted to know if you would dare to show yourself. I told you in no uncertain terms last time to fuck off and never come back. Or else.”

“You’ve said so before,” said Jaskier, eyeing the bulky guards that stood firm beside him. “Or else what?”

She shrugged again.

“I hadn’t gotten that far. My girls will see that you’re suitably punished.”

The Countess grinned and spread her pudgy arms wide.

“Welcome back, my love,” she said.

Jaskier was struck suddenly by the memory of a very different summer day proudly wishing for this exact occurrence on the bank of a mosquito-laden pond.

He could only smile tightly in return.

* * *

As delightful as the impending few weeks promised to be, Jaskier could not quite forget his harrowing realization and lose himself with the same fervor as he once would have to the delectable sights and scents and sounds of the Countess’ lively summer court.

The majority of the barely-dressed maidens who sprawled about the palace grounds had not a lick of interest in menfolk, but that had never stopped Jaskier from enjoying himself in the past.

The Countess had impeccable taste in art and music and wine, as well as women. He should have found himself suitably distracted and swaddled in luxury, seated at the Countess’ feet on the verdant lawn as her entourage bathed in the sun-warmed creek that meandered across the grounds.

He need only strum a few chords and recite some verse and bask in the ambiance, settling into the familiar touch of the Countess’ hand ruffling through his hair.

And yet, his thoughts remained elsewhere.

If his first wish had come to fruition, then what of the others?

He had heard no good news out of Cidaris in relation to the passing of one horrible rival minstrel, but that didn’t mean much, seeing as Valdo Marx had never been newsworthy a day in his life and likely would continue not to be so even in death.

And the content of his third wish still evaded him, though he tried his very best to call up the memory.

Worse still, Geralt was not here to talk him down from increasing panic over said situation, and the only other soul who knew about the djinn incident in detail was--

Well, half the Continent, thanks to his frequent retelling of the incident. He’d written not only an impassioned memoir but a very rousing and popular ditty about his narrow escape from an evil witch.

But none of his work contained the whole truth, of course. No exceptional art did. Only one other knew the lot.

And he didn’t want to think about her.

Which didn’t stop him from doing so, but he made an effort not to at the very least.

It had been nearly two months since waking alone in the watery, dawn light, no Yennefer to be seen. Which was not unusual. She rarely stayed the night. The unusual bit came when a week had passed without a single sighting of her, then another, and another.

He would think their curse broken if not for the continued imprints of her that appeared at odd times in his mind. He saw her, perpetual dour expression and honeyed skin and raven curls. He held the visions there as long as he could, like rolling a sip of expensive wine across his tongue to savor the taste.

He missed her.

Gods, he missed her.

And also would be just peachy if he never saw head nor tail of her ever again.

“My most darling songbird, my dear little lark, my precious boy,” said the Countess later that evening, pulling him down onto her lap after a lackluster private performance of his most recent composition. Her dimpled fingers gripped his chin, turning his jaw from side to side with squinting scrutiny. “Whatever is the matter? You’re not yourself. Has my hospitality not proven suitable to your tastes?”

“Not at all, not at all, my dear lady,” he said, but he could not quite muster a carefree grin. “Your company is everything I wished for and more.” He resisted a wry laugh at his own jest.

“Mmmmm,” the Countess hummed. She pinched his cheek between her thumb and forefinger, and he winced. “Liar. You can spin a dozen beautiful stories, and yet, you still can’t lie to me, little one.”

“Oh, if only I were lying,” said Jaskier with a sigh. “But I really did wish for this. In a most literal sense. It’s a very long and complicated tale, unfortunately.”

The Countess’ expression turned gleeful, sensing the tasty morsel of a compelling narrative.

“Tell me,” she ordered.

And he did.

* * *

“Oh, you poor, poor soul,” the Countess cooed when the story was fully told. Tears shimmered at the corners of her eyes. “To think that I had a hand in such terrible events.” She sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with a dainty handkerchief procured from who knows where. “If only I had known what terrible fate would befall you, I would have kept you safe against my bosom and never driven you out into the cold. _Oh_ , my darling boy.”

She blew her nose loudly.

Jaskier waited out her dramatics, patting her consolingly on the shoulder.

“There, there,” he said. “I’m very much alive.”

“You could have perished!” she wailed.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Only I didn’t. And now I fear I’m in a bit of a pickle.”

The Countess did her best to sober up, taking a moment to glimpse at herself in an ornate handmirror and correct the smudge of her eye makeup before turning her attention back to him.

“Right,” she said primly. “You really can’t remember your final wish?”

“Not a single word,” he said. “I was under very high stress.”

“Oh, you poor dear,” the Countess cooed. “What will you do now?”

Jaskier sighed, leaning into the warmth of her hand against his cheek.

“I suppose that I’ll have to go see about Valdo,” he said with a grimace.

“You think he’ll have… passed on?”

“I wished for him to die painfully,” said Jaskier. “If he has, I’ll know that your welcome was not mere coincidence.”

“What a fickle and strange thing Fate is,” sighed the Countess dreamily. “To think that I may have been inspired by its whims without even realizing. To think I may have been driven to an inevitable reunion, drawn to you as a moth to flame, unable to turn aside… To think that a simple wish may have tethered us, even ever so briefly, so that I appeared before you just as you desired… How terrible… how romantic...”

“Um,” said Jaskier.

Something icy trickled down his spine.

“I fear that I may remember my last wish.”

* * *

When he regaled Geralt with the whole horrid story and subsequent realization, the Witcher’s face twitched in a way that Jaskier knew meant an ordinary man would have pressed his face down into his hands and groaned.

The Countess had been kind enough to send off her personal employ to track down the Witcher and escort him to her summer palace. Geralt had been none too happy to discover that the “terrible danger” the bard faced was not as immediate as he had been made to believe.

“Right,” said Jaskier with a grimace. “So now, we have to head to Cidaris.”

“We,” said Geralt dryly, drawing the word out.

“Yes. I need moral support.”

“Djinn magic is complicated,” said the Witcher. “You have to be very, very specific in your wording or risk unintended consequences.”

“Oh, you mean like accidentally binding yourself to a terrifying, all-powerful sorceress?”

“Yeah, for example.”

“Which is where things start making less sense,” said Jaskier. “My last wish was that she would get what she wanted. But she certainly doesn’t want--” he gestured vaguely at himself “-- anything to do with me.”

“You’re sure that was the whole wish? You said you didn’t remember clearly.”

“No, I’m not sure, Geralt! I’m not sure about anything in all of this! Which is why we have to head to Cidaris and see what’s happened to Valdo. I could be wrong. It could be coincidence.”

“Or the djinn could have twisted that wish too.”

“How? I was very specific. How much more specific can one get than being struck by apoplexy?”

“We’ll see,” said Geralt.

“Oh _we_ will, won’t we?” Jaskier grinned at him.

Geralt let out a lengthy exhale.

“Fine,” he grunted. “Pack your fucking things.”

* * *

“So, this Yennefer,” said the Countess, bending at her vanity to reapply fresh powder to her round face, “who is she to you?”

Jaskier stretched out on her exquisite sheets, most regretful that he could not stay longer. The Countess, for all her fleeting whims and high-flung dramatics, was an attentive lover and a dear friend. A better mother figure to him than the one who bore him. He was loathe to leave so soon.

“No one,” he said.

“No one?”

“Beyond the whole tethered mysteriously by infernal magic thing.”

“That’s quite a large thing,” said the Countess. “You are bound by Fate.”

“You make it sound so romantic,” said Jaskier with a snort. “Trust me. There’s nothing romantic about it. Yennefer wouldn’t know romance if it smacked her in the face. She’d probably spit on it and stomp it to death under her heels.”

“I see,” the Countess said, puffing pink rouge onto the bridge of her nose and the apple of her cheeks. “So, she broke your heart, then?”

“I said no such thing!” Jaskier spluttered. “We never-- she isn’t-- well, it’s not like that, by any means. It never was.”

“Dear one,” she said. When she smiled at him in the mirror, he could see the marks of her age more clearly. The crow’s feet at the edge of her eyes, the faint laugh lines that framed her mouth. “My darling boy, you forget that I’ve known you nearly your whole life. I know how you are. I know how your heart is.”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “It could be the wish for all I know.”

“You wished that she would get what she wanted, yes?” The Countess turned to him, adjusting the straps of her sheer night dress. “Do you know what she wants?”

“That could be anything. That could be _everything_.” Jaskier groaned and rolled back against the feather pillows. “How am I meant to know what it is?”

“The same way you find out anything about a woman,” said the Countess, tapping her finger against her chin. “You ask her.”

Jaskier groaned with more gusto than before.

* * *

“Thought you and the Countess had a falling out,” said Geralt, dappled sunlight playing over his shoulders as they rode together down the winding lane leading away from the summer palace, Jaskier’s borrowed grey pony struggling to keep pace with Roach.

“Hmm? Oh, happens more often than not,” said Jaskier, waving a hand. “She’s a fickle thing. Endlessly melodramatic. I love her dearly, but she doesn’t ever stop yammering on. Loves the sound of her own voice, and whew, the narcissism. I can’t say I could stomach her for longer than a season. I don’t know how anyone does.”

“No clue,” Geralt deadpanned.

“Listen, Geralt, if we inevitably run into you know who, I’d like you to swear to me you won’t tell her about the last wish,” he said. “Swear on our many years of friendship that you won’t tell. Promise me that you won’t. I’m begging you. Imploring. The most heartfelt of pleas. Pinky swear?”

He leant between their mounts, holding out his pinky finger and wiggling it enticingly when Geralt didn’t move his hands from the reins.

“You know, you’re even more insufferable than usual after you’re with the Countess,” he said.

“I was only with her three days!”

“That’s long enough.”

“Ah well, she taught me everything I know,” said Jaskier with a sniff. “Pinky swear, Geralt.”

“I’m not going to fucking pinky swear, Jaskier.”

Before the towering gate at the end of the lane, Roach pinning her ears at the proximity of the little, grey pony, the Witcher grumbled and linked a pinky finger firmly around his own.

12

The seabirds wheeled over the grey walls of Cidaris, rippling waves crashing over the wharf in sprays of glittering seafoam. The city walls rose in concentric circles up a steep bluff, a white-washed fortress perched on the topmost circle. Jaskier itched being so close to the border of Kerack, his childhood home in Lettenhove sharing this very same coastline, but it couldn’t be helped.

He rode, grim-faced, through the gates of the city. His grey pony snorted at the flags flapping along the walls, hooves clattering against the cobblestone streets.

“You look like you’re marching to your death,” said Geralt.

“I _am_ ,” whined Jaskier. “May as well be.”

He could not see a satisfying end to this situation no matter what the outcome.

Either he arrived to find his rival troubadour dead and confirmed that the djinn wishes had been genuine.

Or he arrived to find his rival troubadour alive and well.

Jaskier didn’t know which was worse.

And of course, it was just as such thoughts crossed his mind, that he looked across the wide main thoroughfare that led through the center of Cidaris and sighted a familiar figure amongst the crowd.

“Shit,” he cursed. “Shit fucking cock.”

“Such a way with words, poet,” said Yennefer as she drew alongside their mounts. “What the fuck brings you here?”

“A funeral,” said Geralt, a rumble of laughter rising in his chest.

“Allegedly,” squeaked Jaskier. “Heard some rumors.”

“He’s _wishing_ they’re not true,” Geralt said, and Jaskier resisted elbowing him in the side, knowing it would only earn him suspicion and a sore elbow.

Yennefer narrowed her eyes at them.

“Start talking, bard,” she said. “I know you’re about to get yourself into trouble.”

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you.”

She tapped her temple.

“Grim visions, remember? Be grateful I bothered to come warn you.”

“Warn me? Warn me about what, Yennefer?”

“You can explain why you’re here over drinks,” she said, “and maybe I’ll tell you.” She took the reins of the grey pony. The brainless beast followed her easily, despite Jaskier’s protests.

“Oi, leave off! We didn’t agree to drinks! We are _not_ getting drinks. Drinks never lead anywhere good between the two of us, and it’s really better if we-- Geralt, tell her we’re not getting drinks!”

“You paying?” Geralt asked the sorceress.

Yennefer shrugged.

The Witcher nudged Roach on, the crowds of Cidaris parting around them.

“Geralt! Traitor!”

* * *

To Jaskier’s surprise, rather than leading them up the main thoroughfare to a swanky locale in the upper levels of the city, Yennefer ducked down a cluttered side street into the sprawling slums of the lower town.

She tied the reins of the grey pony to the hitching post out front of a hole in the wall tavern at the back of a winding alley. A sign reading ‘The Moistened Clam’ creaked above the door.

The woman who manned the bar had brown, weathered skin marked with swirls of dark ink and a thick braid of silver hair that hung to the small of her back.

Jaskier recognized her at once and swore, hoping, praying that--

“By Melitele’s soggy arsehole, is that the cocksucker I think it is?”

The woman tossed her dishrag over her shoulder and limped from behind the bar, revealing the peg-legged prosthesis strapped in place of her left leg.

Geralt tensed behind him, hand twitching toward his sword, and Jaskier touched a hand to his elbow to still him, shaking his head.

“Little Julian,” said the woman, brown face wrinkling with a grin as she clapped her hands on his shoulders. She was missing a fair few of her teeth. “As I live and fuckin’ breathe. Last I saw you, you was just a snot-nosed cunt, and now you’re...”

“Still a snot-nosed cunt,” offered Yennefer.

“Oh Yen, he a friend of yours?” The woman pressed a hand briefly to the mage’s face, beaming. “And who’s the ornery-lookin’ fella?”

“Unfortunate acquaintances,” said the sorceress, settling herself on a bar stool.

“Good to see you, Captain,” said Jaskier.

“Do I look like a Captain to you these days, pisshead? You see a fuckin’ ship, hmm?” She spat on the dirt floor of the tavern and slapped her wooden prosthesis. “Ain’t been no Captain since I lost the leg. Call me Tiff.”

“Tiffany brews the best beer this side of the Pontar,” said Yennefer.

“The best beer ‘cross the whole Continent.”

Tiff poured the three of them a full pitcher of ale from the cask set behind the bar. This early in the day, the only other occupant of the Moistened Clam was a snoring drunk passed out in a corner booth.

Jaskier sniffed at the sweet-smelling ale in his mug, attempting to ignore Yennefer’s pointed looks. The ale tasted sour and tangy-sweet with a strangely familiar scent. Geralt’s nose wrinkled.

“This is--”

“Gooseberries,” said Jaskier.

“Brewed with ‘em,” said Tiff. “In honor of our most generous investor.”

“I prefer patron of the arts,” said Yennefer. “More importantly, how do you know _Little Julian_?”

“Mmmm knew him from a babe or near enough. Had more pimples than sense,” said Tiff, leaning across the bar on her elbows. She teased the gaps in her teeth with her tongue as she spoke. “Just a scrawny lad always muckin’ about the docks with the other boys ‘cept he stuck out like a sore tit. Clear as anything he was a noble’s kid and the rest just kept him around for laughs.”

He had been thirteen the summer that the Captain’s mysterious vessel docked in Lettenhove for repairs. He remembered being enchanted by the hardened woman and her crew of mean-looking seafarers with rapiers swinging at their hips, hardly the usual stock in a port that mainly saw fishermen or merchants or minor nobles.

“I asked her to tell me stories about being a pirate,” said Jaskier.

“Like I was sayin’. More pimples than sense.” Tiff grinned. “I preferred esteemed and discreet merchant of exotic wares an’ all that.”

“A smuggler,” said Geralt.

“Smart lad.”

“The tattoo on your wrist. Hard to miss.”

Tiff held up her arm to show a simple silhouette of a ship pierced through with an arrow tattooed on her inner wrist.

“Simple artistic ‘preciation,” she said with a shrug.

Faded lines swirled across her arms and exposed torso, most indistinct and blurred together. On the round of her bare shoulder, a woman’s face smiled with a row of sharp teeth, her plump, bare-breasted figure depicted on Tiff’s browned upper arm and sinuous, scaly tail curving down along her wrist.

“More accurate than most depictions,” said Geralt.

“Should hope so. Paid the artist for nothin’ less,” said Tiff, tapping the tattoo of the beady-eyed mermaid. “That’s Agatha. My beloved.”

“Hmmm,” said Geralt, swirling the gooseberry ale in his mug.

After a fair hour of catching up and vulgar small talk, Yennefer finally turned her attention back to the matter at hand. Or back to Jaskier at least.

“Why are you here, bard?”

Jaskier blinked past the fuzziness in his head. Tiff’s ale had far more of a kick than others he was used to. Yennefer herself looked somewhat cross-eyed, and Geralt half-dozed on his stool. He weighed the risks of lying about the lot of it but thought better of it.

“Ok, ok, remember that time with the djinn?”

“No,” said Yennefer tonelessly. “Whatever do you mean. I’ve up and forgotten.”

“Oh, nasty motherfuckers, them genies,” said Tiff.

“Very nasty,” slurred Geralt.

“Well, I wished for some things.”

“As one does.”

“And one of them came true.”

“As expected,” said Yennefer. “Are you going to get to the point?”

“What the fuck did you wish for?” asked Tiff.

“Um,” said Jaskier. “Well, I wished to be reunited with a lover and that panned out, so I’m here to see if that was only a coincidence.”

“He wished death on some minstrel here in Cidaris,” said Geralt.

“My most bitterest of rivals. An absolute hack. I won’t regret the wish if he’s truly dead.”

“Djinn magic is powerful,” said the mage. “If you wished it, it will come to pass. There’s no ‘if’ about it.”

“But never the way you’re expectin’,” said Tiff. “Gotta be clever about it.”

“Smart woman,” said Geralt.

“And the third wish?”

He distinctly felt the weight of Yennefer’s gaze and waited for the prickle of his scalp that meant she was peering into his head.

It never came.

“I wished that I would live to write a popular ballad about the whole thing,” Jaskier said with a wave of his hand.

The lie came easily. He waited for it to be challenged.

Geralt, holding to his promise, said nothing, watching him over the rim of his mug.

“Absolute waste of a djinn, as expected,” said Yennefer with a roll of her eyes.

Jaskier let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

“It was a good song!”

“You could have wished for anything. Anything at all.”

“Riches,” sighed Tiff. “A fancy sailin’ vessel with one of them newfangled masts. A roof that don’t leak. Or maybe an estate in the hills lookin’ out to sea.”

“Technically already got one of those,” said Jaskier. “The estate in the hills, that is.”

“Complete fucking waste,” said Yennefer, downing the rest of her mug and gesturing to Tiff for more.

The conversation devolved into further expansion on the increasingly elaborate things he could have wished for instead and enthusiastic retellings of embarrassing youthful incidents, devolving into intoxicated cackling as midday stretched into afternoon.

No more mention of his actual wishes. No challenge of the truth of his words.

Guilt settled warm and heavy in his stomach.

* * *

"So, what, we’re just pretending nothing happened between us?” Jaskier asked as he stumbled on the stairs, Yennefer’s hand tangling in the back of his doublet to drag him upright.

Tiff had generously offered to put them up in her spare rooms upstairs to sleep off the drink.

Geralt had gone off to find someplace to stable the horses, and Jaskier had readily taken her up on said offer. Only to be confronted by the challenge of making it up to said room while outright shit-faced.

“Nothing did happen, Jaskier,” said Yennefer.

“Mmmm… I like when you use my name,” he slurred.

Her hand was warm on his back, warmer than the evening sunlight that slanted through the narrow window at the top of the stairs. He didn’t recall asking her to follow him. But perhaps he had.

Regardless, it was lucky she’d been there or he would have certainly tumbled down on his ass.

“Don’t get used to it.”

A more deliberate stumble as they reached the landing brought his back against the wall by the window, Yennefer dragged to press against his body, her hand splayed near his head. He closed his eyes, despite the way the room’s incessant spinning worsened as he did so, to breathe in her familiar scent.

He thought of the wish he had shouted in the manor house. Of the strange thread that bound them.

“Wait,” he said, remembering. “You said I was in trouble.”

“Mmhmm, grim visions,” she said. She made no move to push away from him, seemingly as drunk as he was. Her nose bumped against his shoulder.

“Of what?”

“You. Always you.”

“Very flattering.”

“Saw you in trouble. Stabbed in a bar fight.”

“Yennefer,” Jaskier said. “You saw a vision which involved a stabbing in a bar, and promptly… brought me to a bar?”

“I wanted a drink.” She shrugged, and he felt the movement through the line of his body.

“You’re the worst,” groaned Jaskier, even as he gripped her shoulders, nose pressing into the warmth of her neck.

“Takes one to know one,” mumbled Yennefer, and she kissed his throat, a dry press of lips that inspired a shaky exhale.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“You don’t make any sense.”

“I thought we weren’t doing this anymore.”

“Fuck it,” she said and curled her hand back to cup his ass, dragging him forward to hold the hard line of his clothed erection against her belly. A familiar thrill ran down his spine.

“Gods, I want you. How I’ve wanted you.”

“Shut up. Don’t ruin it.”

“You were the one who got me drunk,” he grunted.

“I’m regretting it.”

“You’re not.”

He rocked against her belly, a tease of friction that left him gasping.

“Miss me that much?”

 _Fuck_ , he had. He really had.

The hand on his ass gripped tighter, and his breath caught.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Spare room?”

She tugged him by the collar down the narrow hallway.

He followed after her as best he could.

* * *

In the wake of their frantic coupling in the spare room above the tavern, Jaskier watched evening skew shadows across the cobwebbed rafters, decidedly sober. He did not feel sated, not really.

He knew, knew in his very bones, that this thing with Yennefer would destroy him.

She dozed beside him, the bare plane of her back warmed by the setting sun, her soft curls tickling his shoulder.

And yet, even knowing the inevitability of where this led, when had he ever done anything but run full-tilt into danger?

When had he ever slowed down to do what was reasonable and sane and not likely to end with parts of him shredded to pieces?

He was no longer the naive youth who had hastened to follow after a Witcher at the first hint of a good story, but was he really so different?

At least this time, he found he didn’t want to tell this story, regardless of how good it was.

Some details he spun into song, but the other things he ached to keep for himself. To hold in his memory and savor. He knew he had no hope of capturing certain things about her with anything approaching accuracy and would only ruin his memory of them in trying.

He touched a hand to her back, fingerpads trailing down the dip of her spine.

“What do you want?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

He imagined that he could feel it, the universe converging around them in a slow and steady attempt to deliver whatever it was she desired. He’d give it willingly, he knew. If it was in his power, he would do so. If only he knew what it was.

“Want you to stop thinking and go to sleep,” mumbled Yennefer.

He did not snatch his hand away from her back as he may once have, instead pressing his fingers more firmly into a caress.

Jaskier already knew what he wanted. He knew.

“I’ll sleep,” he said, “if you let me hold you.”

She rolled back to glower at him.

“You know better than that,” she said. “What a ridiculous thing to ask of me.”

“Maybe I’m still a touch drunk,” said Jaskier, turning his head into the pillow. “Why’s it so ridiculous?”

“Because you’re ridiculous.”

“No more than you.”

“All that talk of wishes has gone to your head,” said Yennefer. “You squandered yours. If your dearest wish is to hold me, then that’s too fucking bad.”

“Not my dearest wish,” he whispered. “Just one of many.”

“Stop talking, Jaskier. This was a mistake.”

“Mmmm,” he hummed around a smile. “There’s my name again.”

“Shut up. Still drunk.”

“Then let me hold you,” he said, daring to shuffle close enough that his chest brushed against her shoulderblades. The hand on her back slid to her hip, fingers just grazing her belly. Her skin jumped under his touch. “Blame it on the drink.”

Yennefer did not pull away, even as he pushed his luck to press a kiss into her hair just behind her ear, then again along the shell of it.

“You’re being stupid,” said Yennefer, voice tinged with sleep.

“What else is new?”

He curled his arm around her, pressing his hand flat just under her breasts to nudge her body back against him. Not so insistently that she could not resist if she truly desired to but more firmly than was probably wise.

“Fine,” she said. “Just this once. You drool in my hair, and you’ll wake in the harbor.”

“No promises,” he said into her dark curls.

“Go the fuck to sleep.”

And he did, holding his arm snug around her all the while, her heartbeat a steady thrum against his chest.

13

Valdo Marx was not dead.

Rather than resorting to bumbling on a wild goose chase about the city, Yennefer had had the brilliant idea of simply extending the troubadour of Cidaris an invitation to meet them at the Moistened Clam at a designated time.

“Sometime in the afternoon,” she had said with a groan, slouched forward on the bar. “So maybe by then, my head will stop fucking splitting in half.”

The three of them sat in the mostly empty tavern sipping at Tiff’s famed hangover cure. Which, as far as Jaskier could tell, appeared to be ordinary vodka.

Exactly at the time designated on the handwritten note Jaskier had sent off, Valdo fucking Marx burst through the doors of the tavern with a dramatic flourish, flanked by two surly-looking guards. The waifish man wore pastel tights and butter yellow silks which clashed horribly with his blond locks and peachy complexion, as well as an utterly ridiculous cape across his shoulders clasped at his throat with the crest of Cidaris.

“It’s _you_ ,” spat the troubadour. “I should have known. What foul locale have you summoned me to? Why does it reek of cheap liquor and piss?”

“It’s the cheap liquor,” drawled Yennefer. “And presumably the piss.”

“You’re alive!” Jaskier exclaimed, striding forward to meet him. “That means--”

“It doesn’t mean fuck all,” said Geralt beside him.

“Of course, I’m alive, you ingrate,” said Marx with a flounce of his golden curls. “Who implied otherwise?”

“Rumors,” said Geralt.

“Grim visions,” said Yennefer.

The troubadour scoffed.

“If I were to perish before my time, all of Cidaris would flounder in mourning. The streets would echo with wailing. The bells would ring across the sea for weeks. For _months_.”

“How cliche,” said Jaskier.

Marx’s eyes narrowed.

“Why this sudden interest in my supposed death? Were you planning my demise? An assassination attempt? Ha! Why, Jaskier, I didn’t think you had it in you! Though you’ve failed horribly, I assume. You’ve failed most dreadfully indeed. I am yet clinging to this mortal coil. I am not so easy to snuff out like a flickering candleflame. I am--”

“--completely fucking annoying,” said Yennefer, sounding dumbfounded.

“More annoying than me?” asked Jaskier.

“Worlds more annoying than you. Didn’t think it possible.”

“I am chock full of endless surprises, Yennefer.”

“You’re chock full of something.”

“Um,” huffed Valdo Marx with a click of his heels. “I believe we were discussing me.” He wheeled on Geralt. “Are they flirting? Is that what this is?”

“Don’t ask me,” growled Geralt. Marx opened his mouth to continue, and Geralt silenced him with a dark look. “No, really. Don’t talk to me.”

“Call off your dog, little lark,” said Marx to Jaskier with a sneer.

“Or what?” asked Jaskier, hands on his hips. “You’ll have your goons clobber him into submission?”

“I bite,” said Geralt with a fanged grin.

“He bites,” said Jaskier.

Huffing in frustration, Marx procured a little dagger from his belt, its mother of pearl hilt and gleaming point catching the dim light in the tavern.

“I’ll prick you myself, you hack! I’ll squash you under my heel!” exclaimed Marx, brandishing the little knife.

“In those piss-poor excuse for heels?” said Yennefer. “You’ll break your ankle before you could even come close to squashing anything. What have you been paying your cobbler? Slop?”

“Oi, what’s that little thing? A sewing needle?” asked Jaskier, puffing up his chest to stare Marx down. “You going to fucking stab me, cur?”

With a flick of his wrist and a yowl of melodramatic rage, Marx lunged forward and promptly did just that.

The blade of the little knife sank smooth as butter into the meat of Jaskier’s upper thigh. As Marx leapt back out of range of quick retaliation, Jaskier watched a wet, red stain spread across the fabric of his torn pants.

He blinked down at it.

“Ack,” said Jaskier.

“Fuck,” said Geralt.

“Ah,” said Yennefer, sitting up straight on her barstool. “I told you that would happen.”

“ _Yennefer!_ You could have-- oh.” Jaskier teetered, suddenly feeling light-headed, a distant pain throbbing from the vicinity of his leg. “I’ve been stabbed.”

Things went a smidgen blurry after that.

Someone caught him under the armpits as the room spun.

Yennefer knelt before him.

He couldn’t recall how he had ended up on the ground.

“It missed anything vital,” she was saying, a glowing hand hovering over the red stain on his thigh. Warmth spread through him and soothed out from the wound, the sharp ache easing at once.

Geralt grunted behind him, breath stirring his hair, grip tight under his arms.

“Next time, it won’t,” said Marx with a sniff, but his wide-eyed expression and the waver of his voice betrayed his bravado.

“That’s all we needed from you,” said Yennefer dismissively.

“ _What?_ ”

“Shoo,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Get out. Off you go. You’re giving me a headache.”

“I was summoned,” said Marx, his eyes flashing. “I won’t be dismissed so easily, not without a--”

“Fuck _off_ ,” said Geralt, and Marx shrank back against his guards.

The troubadour disappeared out the door of the tavern at speed with a swoosh of his cape.

“Phew,” said Jaskier, allowing his head to fall back against Geralt’s shoulder. “Well, wasn’t that a bit of exciteme--”

Yennefer smacked him, a sharp sting across his cheek.

“Idiot,” she said. “Complete dunce.”

“Ow! Yennefer, i’ve just been stabbed!”

“And whose fucking fault was that!”

“Clearly, the man who chose to stab me.”

“Where’s Tiff gotten off to?” asked Yennefer, patting Jaskier’s thigh where the wound had all but vanished. “I’m going to need more alcohol. Fuck, but is that guy always like that?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, still dazed. “He has a way of clinging like a burr and weaselling his way into affairs that don’t concern him and being incredibly annoying about it the whole time.”

“Sounds familiar,” drawled Yennefer. She rummaged under the bar and emerged with a corked amber bottle, took a whiff, cursed, and immediately poured some into their glasses.

“Mildly familiar,” said Geralt and downed a swig.

* * *

“To wasted fuckin’ wishes,” said Yennefer, her glass raised in a toast as Tiff poured them a fresh round of spirits. The evening tavern crowd swelled around them, and a local minstrel whose mandolin was horribly out of tune squeaked out a faltering melody over the hum of conversation.

The four of them tipped back the spirits in their glasses, all but Tiff blanching at the taste.

“Should you even be drinkin’? On account of the stabbing ‘n all?” Tiff asked.

“Eh, I’ve been stabbed before,” said Jaskier. After Yennefer’s ministrations, barely a throb remained in his thigh to remind him of the incident. Which was quite convenient. And fairly anti-climactic. “It’s almost old hat.”

“To stab wounds,” said Geralt, already well into his cups and grinning in a way that was frightening the locals.

“To idiots with a death wish,” said Yennefer.

The two of them downed their glasses.

“Hey, you were the one who didn’t warn me soon enough,” said Jaskier.

“I warned you a whole day before. How much more advanced warning does one need? I traveled all the way to Cidaris just to warn you.”

“You traveled all the way to Cidaris to visit your favorite tavern. And you came by portal. I don’t know that you were all that inconvenienced.”

“I’m being inconvenienced right now actually. And the grim visions aren’t all that specific, you know,” said Yennefer. “I didn’t think you would be so foolish as to outright challenge someone to stab you.”

“Hasn’t changed a lick since he was three foot tall and twenty pounds wet,” said Tiff, leaning to ruffle Jaskier’s hair. He made a noise of protest, and Yennefer snickered.

“Hang on, hang on,” said Jaskier, wobbling on his bar stool. “Still don’t get how Valdo’s alive. I distinctly remember declaring that I wished he would be struck by apoplexy and die. But the bastard’s fighting fit.”

“I would hardly say that,” said Yennefer.

“Must not have been specific enough,” said Geralt.

“To ambiguity,” said Yennefer, raising her glass for another toast.

“There’s no other troubadour of Cidaris. No other Valdo Marx either as far as I’m aware.”

“He could still die,” said Geralt.

“When?”

“Hmmm. Anytime.”

“So could anyone!”

Geralt shrugged.

“Should have been more specific.”

“To our impendin’ deaths,” toasted Tiff. “Anytime and anywhere.”

“Valdo’s going to die sixty years from now all comfy in bed,” Jaskier groaned into his folded arms.

“There, there,” said Yennefer, patting his back. “Maybe you too will die shitting yourself and half-mad.”

Jaskier groaned more loudly, peering up at the ceiling.

“So... what now?”

“What do you mean, what now?” asked Yennefer. “Nothing now. Your completely inane and poorly thought out wishes came true. You survived a mild stabbing. Congratulations.”

“Back on the road again,” he said with a wistful sigh. “Put all of this behind me.”

“Not with me,” said Geralt. “Picked up a contract last night. I’ll be here another week yet.”

“A holiday, then? I could use a fucking holiday.”

“What could you possibly need a holiday _from_ , bard? You don’t do fuck all,” said Yennefer.

“I do plenty,” said Jaskier. “I do loads. Tell her, Geralt.”

“To doing fuck all,” toasted Geralt, and the lot of them swung back their glasses once more, Jaskier doing so with a reluctant grumble.

“You’re welcome to the rooms,” said Tiff. “As long as you’re buyin’ my alcohol and promise to spread word of this shitehole on your travels.”

“Will do,” muttered Jaskier, “if this piss doesn’t kill me first, that is.”

“That could be arranged, ya little cunt.”

“No need,” said Yennefer. “He’ll open his mouth and find someone else to do it for you without much trouble.”

* * *

The hardened bartender caught him by the arm in the stairwell before he could stumble off to bed, looking suddenly less tipsy than she had manning the bar.

“You and the mage,” she said, her gaze sharp.

“You have something witty to say about it too? Some sage warning?” asked Jaskier. He swayed on his feet.

“Not here to condone or condemn,” said Tiff. “I don’t give three shits, and I’m too old for gossip.”

“Then, what?”

“Familiar, is all,” she said. “Me and the missus weren’t so different for a time. ‘Course when we met I tried to harpoon her and haul her onboard, and she tried to gut me and feast on the steamin’ entrails.”

“Definitely sounds familiar,” said Jaskier with a snort. “But we’re not like anybody and anybody’s missus.”

“Tell yourself whatever you’d damn well like to,” said Tiff. “But it’s foolish. Serves nothin’ at all to be too proud to tell somebody you give a shit.”

“Trust me, I don’t think I’m the one who needs this lecture.”

“So, she knows you give a shit?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

“Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth. Never stops bein’ complicated. Never a simple thing worth lovin’.”

“Thanks for the entrail-ridden pep talk, Captain,” said Jaskier, feeling woozy and more than a little exhausted. “But it’s nothing like that. And I’m off to bed.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” said Tiff.

And he thought of Yennefer, who he had left carousing with Geralt at the bar, knowing for all his exhaustion and faltering protests, he would lie awake in bed until she stumbled up to join him.

14

“You’ve fucked Valdo,” said Yennefer, apropos of nothing. She and Jaskier strolled side by side down the streets of Cidaris, sent out on an errand by Tiff, so that they may as well earn their keep while hogging her spare rooms. As they walked, the narrow grey alleyways of the slums gave way to the widening, white-washed thoroughfares of the upper town.

The rippling heat of the summer day drove Yennefer to wear her hair tied up in a bun piled on her head, and Jaskier found himself unable to stop staring at the wisps of hair at the base of her neck.

“No,” said Jaskier, voice rising an octave. “How did you get ‘definitely fucked’ out of that whole messy stabbing situation yesterday.”

Yennefer quirked an eyebrow.

“Ah,” said Yennefer. “He’s fucked _you._ ”

“No!” he squeaked, eyes darting around at the teeming crowds that parted around them until he remembered Yennefer’s amulet that hid her from scrutiny when need be. “Er… a long time ago. Eons ago.”

“Mmmm, and how did that go? Neither of you have a dominant bone in your body.”

Jaskier blinked at her.

“You know that this isn’t my usual fare,” he said. “Quite the opposite actually.”

“What isn’t? The stabbing?”

“You know,” said Jaskier with a vague gesture. “The submissive thing.”

“Ah,” she said. “Are we talking about that, then?”

“No,” he said. “Are we?”

“We aren’t actually.”

“You brought it up! You asked!”

“Brought what up?” She blinked at him in mock ignorance.

“ _Yen_ -nefer!”

“We don’t need to talk about it. There’s no reason to talk about it.”

“Why? Let me guess, because it’s not happening ever again?”

“Precisely.”

“That hasn’t exactly panned out so far.”

“Well one of these times it will. It can’t go on forever.”

Jaskier opened his mouth to say something completely stupid like _it could_ and immediately closed his mouth again. Yennefer’s black dress caught the wind and fluttered between her knees, fabric brushing Jaskier’s legs. They had reached a gleaming terrace that looked over the rooftops of the lower town, the sea rounding the horizon in the distance.

“Is that really what you want?” he asked.

She tipped her head, regarding him.

“Come with me,” said Yennefer. Her fingers dug into his upper arm, and he followed easily. He couldn’t not.

The alleyways in the upper town were narrower, more discreet. No one travelled through them but the rats and the servants, and it was into one of these narrow spaces that Yennefer led him, leaning warm behind his back as she pushed him against the alley wall. He pressed his face into the cool stone as she trailed a hand down his side.

“We’re still doing this?” he asked, and she lay a hand against his soft cock through the fabric of his textured breeches.

“No,” she said and rubbed a thumb along him. He closed his eyes to focus on the feeling of her hips slotted behind him, his hands braced on the wall, her palm warmed around him.

She tugged on the lacing of his breeches and slipped her hand down the back of his waistband. Her hand cupped the bare curve of his ass, and he breathed out hard through his nose.

“You’re sensitive,” she said into his back. He forgot sometimes that she was nearly a head shorter than him.

“I’m--” his fingers twitched on the wall as her hand slid against him. “-- it’s been a while.”

“Valdo?”

“That was ages ago. Ages and ages. I’ve done this since.”

“How do you know what I’m about to do?”

“Educated guess.”

“Geralt?” she asked.

He startled as her finger pressed down between the cleft of his cheeks.

“Never,” he breathed. “You know he hasn’t--”

“I’ve talked to him about it,” she said. “I wondered if maybe something changed.”

“You _what_?”

“Have you ever imagined this? With him?”

Jaskier was distracted from the question as Yennefer muttered something distinctly magical under her breath and her fingers went suddenly slick as they began to rub in slow circles against the delicate skin of his opening.

“We’re not-- I’ve imagined it. A long time ago,” said Jaskier, turning his cheek against the stone.

“Imagine it now.”

“Why?” he gasped.

“Because I want you to,” she said. One of her slender fingers slipped inside him, a slow pressure eased by the conjured slick. It didn’t feel like much at all, it felt like a finger in his ass in a stinking alley, but he panted open-mouthed anyway. Because it was Yennefer. Because he could feel her breath against his back and her legs between his. “Or is this not your usual fare?”

“It’s not,” he said. Which wasn’t true. Especially as a young man, he had attracted his fair share of men and women who wished to dominate him, and he had indulged them with great pleasure.

But the majority of his amorous affairs over the years had had some give and take, some switching, some attempts to draw out as much pleasure from the other in as many different ways as possible. And yet, this thing with Yennefer retained the same dynamic each time.

Always Yennefer above him, Yennefer behind him, Yennefer in control.

“Which is--” he gasped as she crooked her finger. “--that’s fine if that’s what you want. Or if you don’t want any of it at all. But I don’t think--”

“You don’t need to think,” said Yennefer and slipped in a second finger, stretching and feeling him. Her fingers were small and uncalloused, and there was no reason that they should drive him so easily to shiver against the alley wall.

“Thought you told me to _imagine_.”

He could not think of anyone else at all with her so close behind him, her fingers curling inside.

“Changed my mind,” she said. “Just feel.”

“Getting the impression that you really don’t know what you want,” he said. The alley felt too warm, the air too close, and Yennefer’s fingers rubbed inside him at a pace that felt almost leisurely.

“I want you to be quiet.”

“You don’t actually. You never really do.”

“You can’t know that,” she said. “You still don’t know a thing about me.”

Jaskier let out a bark of a laugh.

“You still believe that? You can’t really believe that.”

“I’ll believe whatever I want,” she said and twisted her fingers, and he groaned against the skin of his wrist braced against the wall.

“I know,” Jaskier gasped. “I know that about you.”

“Everyone knows that.”

“What do you want, Yennefer?” he asked, and he tried not to think about the wish at all, tried to ignore the swell of guilt he felt in lying to her, tried to reason that he would want to know the answer to this question anyway, wish or no. That he would want to give it to her.

But he couldn’t know that, not really.

“Want you to touch yourself for me,” she said, and he obeyed, moving one hand from the wall to draw his cock through the open lacing of his breeches.

He panted against the wall of the alley, stroking himself, her fingers crooked to rub inside him, her knee shoved between his parted legs, her other hand curled around his hipbone, and he thought _at the very least, I know what I want_.

Or did he?

His thoughts blurred with pleasure, Yennefer quickening her pace in time with his strokes, and he thought _I want this I want this._

Or not this. Not something messy and quick in a servant’s alley, impulsive and unpredictable and gone in a blink.

Or not only this. Not only a fumbling, sudden thing at Yennefer’s fleeting whim but also--

He wanted--

“I’m-- fuck, Yennefer,” he grunted, and Yennefer did not pull back or slow her pace, allowing him to tip over and finish in streaks across the base of the grimey stone wall.

Even then, she did not slow at first, and he squirmed forward against the wall, over-sensitive and too warm. He could hear the rhythmic sounds of her pleasuring herself behind him even as her fingers kept the same cadence. If he closed his eyes, he could smell her, not lilacs or gooseberries but the thick and heady scent of her arousal.

It seemed to go on and on, Yennefer thrusting with her fingers as though they were a cock. He whimpered at the thought and at the sensations that verged on discomfort. Her fingers crooked inside him to find his prostate, and he jerked away, raw and almost painful so soon after coming.

She soothed him, gentle, just the pads of her fingers, and he could cry, he _was_ crying, wetness blinking at the corner of his eyes.

“Y-yen,” he gasped. “Yen, I want--”

She pressed more firmly inside him again, and he sobbed, squirming until his belly was flush against the stone. She pinned him there with her slight weight, pelvis flush against his ass, pulling her fingers free to cup his cheek and rub with a thumb at his opening.

Yennefer pressed so closed he could feel her pleasuring herself, the small shifts as she rubbed between her legs, and he knew the moment that her orgasm struck her by the tensing of the line of her body, the tightening of her fingers as they gripped his ass, the blunt tip of her thumb sliding inside.

 _I want--_ , he thought, and the rest blurred away from him, as fleeting as blossoms scattered on flagstones in spring, as distant as the other side of the sea.

15

Jaskier endeavored, as much as was possible in this fuckhole of a city, to make a proper holiday out of his time in Cidaris.

“Stay the fuck out of trouble,” Geralt had said. “Both of you.”

Before promptly fucking off into the sewers.

Jaskier did not envy him the job crawling about in the muck beneath this piss awful armpit of a city, but he did envy the sense of what the fuck he was meant to be doing.

Geralt heard tell of a monster with a price on its head, and he headed resolutely off to deal with it. Jaskier, meanwhile, chased down aimless wishes and fumbled after the Witcher and shared a bed with a half-mad sorceress, his hand cupping the swell of her hip, her arms curled up against her chest. She slept turned away from him in perfect stillness but did not object to the brush of his thumb along her bare skin, the nudge of his nose into her dark curls, the press of his shins against her calves.

Months ago, when he had woken to find her gone and then stayed gone, it had not surprised him. It had felt inevitable, imminent, only a matter of time, and of course, it had happened and that had been the end of that.

But now.

He didn’t have any better idea of what she could possibly want. What she could have wanted so badly with the djinn that she would nearly tear it all down to claw towards it. He remembered the crack of her bones, the contortion of her joints, the howl that tore the cords of her throat.

What could anyone possibly want that badly?

And what did she want with him?

* * *

“Cidaris is too much of a fuckhole for a good holiday,” said Yennefer as she leaned away from the open window in the spare room above the Moistened Clam to protect her freshly-lit pipe from the sea breeze. An early morning visit to the colorful, exotic bazaar alongside the harbor had proven most fruitful indeed.

“Well, it’s not as if I chose it,” said Jaskier, sprawled naked in their bed “I had business here.”

“Have business somewhere better next time.”

“It’s not as if I _invited you_ ,” he huffed.

Except that he had, drunkenly and with an embarrassing tinge of neediness.

“Just one week,” he had all but begged. “Just the one. There’s a wish for you. One week.”

“You wasted your wishes,” she had slurred, face shadowed in the dark of the stairwell, but she had leaned up on tiptoe to kiss him under the line of his jaw in the manner she did more and more often now. A press of soft lips and then away. Fleeting enough that he could pretend he had imagined it. So different from their hurried kissing long ago in the ruined manor house.

She could have said no. Could have fucked off.

But she hadn’t said anything, just tucked her head under his chin and held there, an inch of space hovering between their bodies. Touching only where her fingers curled around his elbow and where her forehead pressed to the skin of his neck.

In the room above the tavern, Jaskier found himself staring at Yennefer’s red lips as she pressed the stem of the pipe against the corner of her mouth. She tipped her head back to leisurely puff smoke after a long drag and passed the pipe along to him.

Their fingers brushed as he took it from her. A stain of her red lipstick smeared tacky along the stem, but he held it against his lips anyways.

 _Almost like a kiss_ , his brain supplied unhelpfully.

He couldn’t say whether he was thankful that she no longer dipped into his thoughts on a whim or whether he was regretful.

 _I would like to kiss you again,_ he thought as his skin took on a tinge of warm pleasure while the pipe did its work, smoke curling around them. _The ways we did once and in ways we haven’t yet. I would like to kiss you._

Her slender hand curled around his to take back the pipe.

He watched her touch her lips where his own had been a moment before.

That thought alone should not have thrummed through his belly, should not have prickled so warmly along his scalp.

*

The pair of them made a go of it, despite how wretched Cidaris truly was.

A holiday.

They played tourist in the bazaar, perusing overflowing market stalls and tables laden with exotic wares and kitschy trash alike.

Billowing silks and shiny trinkets and resin fragrances and blown glass and ornate metalwork and other such bits and baubles of varying and sometimes dubious quality. And of course, endless carts and wagons and firepits and bushels of tempting victuals of every form and substance, of which they indulged healthily.

Jaskier looked up from a stall hung with hand-carved wooden flutes shiny with lacquer to glimpse Yennefer strolling on among the patchwork mess of the bazaar. The cobalt dress she wore bared most of the slender line of her back, her dark hair hanging in a single, loose braid between her shoulderblades.

She saw him watching and quirked a brow, and he hurried to follow her, falling in step with an easy gait. How simple, how strange it all was.

Her hand brushed the small of his back.

 _I want her,_ he thought, and it struck him mute to know it so plainly. _I want all of her._

* * *

They chose to forgo the dismal beachfront piers and piddling strips of grey sand along the perimeter of the city to go sailing with Tiff. The woman yodeled a tune as she pointed the nose of her ramshackle dinghy into the choppy waves, Jaskier and Yennefer clinging to whatever they could on deck.

The craggy island they came upon boasted a strip of flat ground beneath the shade of a windswept tree perfect for the picnic lunch that Jaskier unpacked from the wicker basket he had held tightly under his arms so as not to lose it to the waves.

Said artful spread was no sooner laid out than it was nearly drenched to ruins by a rush of sea water as a leathery mercreature hefted her body onto the beach and cracked a grin full of glistening fangs.

“Ah, that’d be the missus then,” said Tiff, shaking the salty water from her silver hair. “Never said she was graceful or nothin’.” She stuck out her tongue at the creature, and Agatha slapped her fish-scaled tail in the surf to splash the woman anew.

With the picnic mostly salvaged, Agatha proved to have a singing voice like no other Jaskier had ever heard, strange and jarring arising from her scarred lips, frog-like yellow eyes blinking and gills flexing as her voice rose above the crash of the waves.

He dearly regretted leaving his lute behind at the tavern but harmonized with her as best he could anyway. The sea crashing over the rocks gave a steady rhythm to the haunting melody, ethereal and otherworldly.

More ethereal still was the smile that rested on Yennefer’s lips as she sat cross-legged on the rocky beach, her dark hair windswept and violet eyes held on him.

* * *

More of the holiday than not, they spent moving together in the spare room, discovering the ways that their bodies had become somehow familiar. Their gestures and touches and sighs and tastes.

How Jaskier could tell by the pitch of her moans how long to linger between her legs. How Yennefer would tighten her fingers in his hair and tug when she recognized the lazy sweep of his tongue that meant he foolishly aimed to take his time.

And sometimes, there was stillness. No movement but the rise of their breath.

Sometimes, Jaskier imagined what it would be like to freely peer into her thoughts as she once had his.

Sometimes, he wondered why she no longer did.

She lay staring, her eyes half-closed, her honey-colored skin a bronzed contrast to his pale limbs that tangled with hers. He ached to know what she was thinking. What she thought of him. What she knew of the desires that beat endlessly in his head like a heartbeat.

_I want her. I want all of her. I want her. I want all of her._

But Jaskier was out of wishes.

That was the end of that.

* * *

A courier met him in the streets, holding out a sheaf of fine parchment.

> _My dearest buttercup, the song of my life, my sweet and most cherished boy,_
> 
> _Remember what we talked about._
> 
> _Kindly get your shit together._
> 
> _Love and warmest regards,_
> 
> _The Countess de Stael_

“Gods above,” he breathed as he snapped the brief letter shut again. “How does she always fucking _know_?”

“How does who know what?” said Yennefer, appearing at his shoulder.

He cursed and tossed the letter into the breeze, fluttering away over the rooftops. Yennefer raised a hand and drew it to alight back in her grip.

“Hmmm,” she said, reading over the letter as Jaskier swatted for it. “She’s right.”

“You don’t even know what it’s about!”

And if she knew, he wondered, how quickly would she flee from him?

If she knew how he had bound her, would she pause to burn him to a black char on the flagstones? Or perhaps worse, would she simply look at him a long moment in wounded disdain and quietly turn aside?

* * *

Yennefer rolled atop him in the bed, her hips moving at a languid rhythm as she trapped his cock against his belly. The summer afternoon warmed the muggy room, waking from a midday nap after a morning of similar activities.

“Why’s it always like this?” he asked, hands twitching on her hips as he mouthed up under her breasts. She tasted salty with sweat and smelled of lilacs.

“This?”

“You above me,” he said. “You in control.”

“Mmmm,” she hummed, tangling her fingers into his hair and pulling his head back. “You think you could overpower me, bard?”

“No,” he said.

“Think you could control me?”

“Of course not.”

Yennefer curled her fingers under his chin, held him there to stare down at him. She did not still the roll of her hips as she did so.

“I wish to try something,” she said, the phrasing deliberate, and he shivered.

She shifted off him again, swatting at his hip until he rolled to his belly, and slicked her fingers with a word, pressing them between the cleft of his ass. He shivered more deeply. She did not ask, pressing further, a finger slipping to stretch him.

“Just that?” he asked. “We’ve done that.”

Several times and with increasing vigor.

“This is a warm up,” she said and crooked her finger. Added another. Jaskier pressed his face into the pillow.

“For what?”

“You,” she said, with a pause for the sheer drama of it all, “are going to be above me.”

“I’m very much beneath you,” said Jaskier, voice half-muffled by the pillow. He found it very hard to think with her fingers doing what they were doing.

“In more ways than one.”

He reached around to pinch at her thigh, and she swatted at his bare ass. And once more for good measure, the sound a pleasing, sharp smack.

The press and stretch of her fingers seemed to go on for a long time, and he would have been overjoyed for it to go on and on, the initial burn around the edges giving way to seeping pleasure. He could come like this, drawn up from within him one unhurried rub of her fingers inside him at a time.

She removed her fingers, and he all but whined.

“Watch me,” she said, and he obeyed, rolling to his back to face her.

She kneeled on the bed, gaze hooded, honeyed skin dewed with the summer heat, and he remembered her kneeling above him in Rinde, the dull look of violent intent in her eyes. Her expression now was thoughtful, amused.

“Mmmm,” he hummed, “shall I butter that biscuit, then?”

The amusement deepened, and a smirk slipped onto her lips.

“Not quite,” Yennefer said. She raised a glowing hand and pressed it into the dark hair at the swell of her pubic bone, muttering an incantation.

A cock twitched to life between her legs, silvery and translucent.

“Oh,” said Jaskier, shoved up on his elbows and limbs splayed carelessly. He felt a little bit boneless. “Oh, I see.”

Yennefer dropped down onto her back on the bed beside him. She cocked an elbow over her head, wiggling her hips and stretching to adjust herself more comfortably and ran a slow hand up the specter of a cock that jutted between her legs. He knew by the little wrinkle that deepened between her brows that this magic must allow her to feel sensation as distinctly as though the thing between her legs was a flesh and blood cock.

“Well?” said Yennefer, stroking herself from base to tip, “do I need to extend a written invitation?”

His mouth went dry. He narrowly missed kneeing himself in the face in his mad rush to scramble into her lap.

Straddling her thighs, he touched the silvery cock and startled at the tingle of static that rushed along the pads of his fingers. It felt cooler than skin but as solid and velvety as the real thing. Yennefer spread her legs beneath him, the translucent phallus that jutted from her pelvis a shimmering contrast to the dark hair that curled between her legs and down her inner thighs.

“You can feel that?” he asked and thumbed under the flared head. Yennefer’s cock twitching in his hand and the part of her lips around a sigh was all the answer he needed.

Jaskier knew what she intended him to do next, to kneel above her and position the phallus and sink down with a flex of his thighs, but he found himself distracted by the sight she made beneath him in the bed. He trailed his fingers up through the wisps of dark hair that led to her navel and up the heated skin of her belly. His fingertips brushed the round of a breast, parting away from her sternum as she lay back, her dusky nipples standing stiff and aroused.

How soft she looked like this, her tender underbelly exposed, her body spread out beneath him. And yet, the glint in her eyes and the stiff cock between her legs revealed the ruse. Yennefer was no more vulnerable, soft, or exposed here than in any other position.

His control here was illusory. She must know that he knew this, her violet gaze steady and simmering.

He rose above her, reaching behind himself to test his readiness, and guided the phallus to nudge against him. It pressed inside with the same weight and stretch as a real cock but the added electric tingling of magical sensation.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he groaned, and Yennefer pressed a palm flat against his soft stomach as he sank down as though she could feel herself inside him through the skin of his belly.

Neither moved for a quiet moment, Jaskier adjusting his hips to settle the phallus more comfortably, Yennefer holding very still. He waited for her to shift her hips up, to set a demanding rhythm, but she did nothing but tangle her fingers in the hair above his own stiff cock, tugging gently.

“Go on, then,” she said, making a show of relaxing beneath him, her head lolling against the pillows, eyes half-lidded. “You have the control here. Take your pleasure from me.”

He had said something similar once, what felt like ages ago, and he closed his eyes with a shuddering breath, feeling the girth of the spectral cock inside him in more than just the usual full pressure, little fizzing sparks of pleasure leaping through his body. He felt flushed and on the brink before he had even moved to shift against her.

And move he did, his thighs tensing and relaxing as he leaned back to ride her at an angle that elicited fresh surges of warming pleasure each time he pressed down.

His pace stretched slower than their usual cadence, a sinuous roll and grind of his hips down against her. Her slender hands spread across his thighs, dwarfed by their breadth, and she dug her fingernails into the shifting muscle, her brows knit and head pressed back into the pillows.

He had all the control here and also none of it. He rose above her, set the pace, saw her lying on her back beneath him, and still, he felt as small as a downy, newborn creature in the palm of her hand.

She brushed her fingers against the base of his cock, encircling him with the sweep of her thumb up the vein along the underside, and that was enough, his orgasm striking him in a sudden burst that was nearly painful. Inside him, the phallus vibrated with a swelling wave of electric current, which seemed to be as much for her benefit as for his, as Yennefer arched beneath him through the swell of her own orgasm.

He did not mind it, the ways he felt like an insect pinned beneath her scrutinizing gaze. He did not mind it for the moments like this, her eyelashes fluttering in ecstasy, her hair mussed across the pillows, her thumb stroking a mindless touch against the soft, hairless spot at the side of his knee, a movement he didn’t think she was even aware of.

He did not mind it at all.

* * *

Jaskier was having a very terrible dream.

Fire. He was on fire.

The flames danced high across the walls and licked across his bare skin. He contorted away from the pain and as he did his ligaments strained and snapped, as he did his skin began to slough free, as he did his bones shattered and knit back together, shattered and knit, cleaved and re-made.

He struggled awake to the sound of whimpering, a high-pitched whine that rose and fell in the fuzzy darkness of the spare room. His lungs ached as though still full of smoke.

It took him a moment blinking at the ceiling, the bare walls, the narrow window lit by the moon to realize that the sound came from Yennefer. She was curled down tight into a fetal position, his arm caught between her raised knee and her belly. Shudders ran through her body, deep and trembling.

“Yen?” he whispered, and she startled, twisting in his hold, a spark alighting in her hands. He squeaked, ducking away, and in the scant moonlight, he saw that a streak of tears gleamed on her cheeks, her violet eyes wild. Sparks arced down her bare arms like summer lightning.

Jaskier tensed in the anticipation of a blow, a pulse, some burst of pain, but none came.

“Jaskier,” she breathed, and _oh_ , he had never heard her voice sound so small and unsteady.

“I’m here,” he said. “Please don’t zap me.”

She seemed to belatedly notice the electricity that flickered across her bare arms, and the light show ceased at once. He blinked against errant spots in his vision.

“Fuck,” she said, voice wavering, and Jaskier reached for her, a hand on the flat of her back, another cupping the back of her head and he waited for her to resist, to pull away, to change her mind and really zap him.

She did not.

Her body quivered with tension as he gathered her in his arms, but she allowed the embrace. She allowed it. Her head snugged under his chin. His hands rubbing up the curve of her spine. His lips pressed into her hair.

“What was that?” he asked. “A dream?”

“A dream,” she agreed, nodding against his neck. “A memory.”

“I felt it,” said Jaskier. “Saw glimpses of it. Gods, Yen, what _was_ that?”

“A very bad memory.”

“Tell me?” He regretted the question at once.

She stiffened, and he thought _yes, that’s that. She will push me away. She will go._

Instead, she drew a long breath and released a tremulous exhale that stirred the hair along his collarbone.

“I was born--” Yennefer said and could not seem to find the words to say more. She pushed herself away, and he loosened his hold, expecting her to extract herself and close off. She only went far enough to frown at him without going cross-eyed. “When I was a child-- I was--”

She huffed in frustration and extracted a hand from between their bodies to press against his temple.

At once, the image of a child bloomed in his thoughts. A girl, shaggy-haired and crooked and curled in on herself. Features twisted in a scowl, gait clumsy with a limp.

Violet eyes.

“Oh,” he breathed, and the dark of the room could not hide her wince.

“Should not have fucking shown you that,” she said and cursed under her breath.

“No, it’s-- you were--”

“Don’t say some clever shit like ‘oh, you were just as beautiful then’. It’s horse shit, and you know it. And I never cared about that. Not really,” said Yennefer, a bright flare of anger in those same eyes. “Anyway Aretuza prettied that up nicely. A sorceress must not disgrace a court with a visage whose flaws remain untempered. Mine required… rigorous tempering.”

“I felt it,” he breathed. “Your dream. Your pain. Fuck, Yennefer, was all that really worth it?”

She smiled wryly, a twisted shadow that the moonlight barely touched.

* * *

They made a go of it.

The two of them.

Jaskier allowed the days to stretch into the mindless blur of any good holiday, and yet, he knew that they could not exist in this warm bubble of time forever. It would burst soon and trickle away, like a retreating wave seeping back down the beach. It would end.

It always came to an end.

* * *

“Listen,” said Jaskier finally, his restraint gone thin, “tell me what this is. What are you after here, Yen? _Please_. Tell me.”

He hated the plaintive whine in his voice, wobbling like some desperate maiden. He usually prided himself on avoiding any lasting attachment with his lovers, but over the years, he had heard such desperation in the pleas of many a young lover who he had mistakenly allowed too close, held tight too long.

Many times, he had had the unfortunate job of gently rebuking affections and setting things straight. _I am sorry, my darling,_ he had repeated often, swiping at the tears that welled at the corners of their eyes, _but what we had can be no more than this. And now, I fear that it cannot be at all._

Now, the pleas were his.

Yennefer sat up in bed to look at him.

“What would you have me say?” she asked. “That I long for your tender embraces. That I shiver beneath your touch. That I _yearn_.”

“Be serious,” he said.

“This thing between us isn’t serious,” she scoffed.

“Ah,” he said, “but you admit there is a thing between us?”

“Of course, there is, you fool,” she said sharply.

“It doesn’t have to be serious,” said Jaskier. “I’m not asking for…” He trailed off, feeling decidedly unmoored, “... well, I don’t know what I’m asking for.”

“Something casual,” she said, eyeing him with an expression that seemed caught between thoughtful and hesitant. That she expressed open hesitance in his presence at all sent a bloom of something warm and strange spreading in his chest.

“Casual!” he insisted loudly. “As casual as anything. No funny business. Nothing exclusive or binding. No strange ideas. Nothing more than that. Just… don’t freak out and disappear again.”

“I didn’t freak out and disappear.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, waving a hand. “But what do you say? To something casual.”

“Casual,” she repeated, as though testing the sound of the word in her mouth.

“I promise,” he said. “A casual arrangement. I swear it.”

“You swear what?” Yennefer asked, her violet eyes regarding him down the length of her nose, and some part of him wished to say _everything, gods... everything. Anything._

Instead, he lifted his hand, holding out his pinky in offering. She laughed at the ridiculous gesture, and he thought for a moment that she would turn away from him and ignore the extended digit.

She reached to curl her pinky around his. It felt foolish and completely silly and exhilarating, the small press of warmth from the connection.

“I swear that it will be good,” said Jaskier. “I swear it.”

“I’m going to fucking regret this,” said Yennefer, rolling her eyes as he pulled at her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles.

 _I’m going to regret this_ , thought Jaskier as his lips brushed their joined fingers.

But he put the thought out of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic gets ALL the assorted lesbian ocs


	5. part four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings** in this chapter for imagined and threatened acts of bodily harm, prolonged orgasm denial, attempts at public humiliation, somewhat better negotiated dom/sub dynamic, magic cock rings, magic dress-up, a classist asshole mage oc, valdo being a tit, public blowjobs, cheesiness, yennefer being a big big idiot, and Emotions

The hellish little troubadour kneeled before her on the bed, naked and wide-eyed and flushed pink, looking in every detail like a person she should feel nothing for, no attraction, no affection, no sour, twisting feelings in the pit of her stomach.

And yet.

The details enthralled her.

His scrawny, bare legs rumpling the worn linens, his hunched shoulders with their dusting of hair and freckles, his belly rolls, his knobby wrists, the soft cock that nestled in the dark hair between his thighs, the dimple in his stupid chin, the blue of his eyes.

He kneeled before her, sitting back on his heels and blinking at her and repeating the word _casual_ like he was quite clever.

The position was a mirror of his offering last winter in Novigrad. The bard on his knees before her in bed. But so very different as well. That Jaskier had been desperate, enraptured, keen to know more of her, and brimming with an intensity that she could do nothing but cruelly shut down and run from. This Jaskier knew her better, eyes glinting, body relaxed, head ducked in a show of coy submission, but she recognized the same trap in it.

He offered his soft underbelly, laid himself vulnerable at her feet, but she knew if she pulled him close and sank her teeth in, he would twist in her arms and return the favor. The second she relaxed into his show of vulnerability, she knew she would find herself truly in danger.

In Novigrad, she had fled.

But she had grown weak to him since then. Here was the proof of the effectiveness of his trap. Even as he cowered before her, he sidled in past her defenses. Even as he extended his little finger, allowing her the choice to turn him aside and scoff, he offered her only an illusion of control.

He had to know that she was hopeless to it. That part of her desired to grasp at him, claim him, curl her body tight around him and squeeze the breath from his lungs. He would let her, probably look at her with the very same soppy-eyed smile as he wheezed his last note.

She wanted to tug him back by the hair and taste the copper-penny tang of his slit throat. She wanted to wind her arms around his shoulders, press her face into his neck, and cling and breathe and shout her frustration against his skin. She wanted to press her forehead to his, to brush her fingers against the delicate skin just behind his ear, to allow his hands to hold her in a fierce grip, no more of the light, tentative touches he offered most nights.

And she wanted to kiss him, still and quiet and deliberate. She wanted to kiss him.

He had to know this. The bastard had to know.

His hips wiggled in his smug reassurance of his own cleverness. He grinned at her, wobbling around the corners of his mouth but still grinning, and Yennefer hated him so profoundly that her skin burned feverish with anger.

She hated how easily her little finger curled around his own, that she even allowed herself to indulge in the gesture.

It was utterly ridiculous, sickeningly childish, disturbingly and entirely idiotic.

His grin twitched against her knuckles as he kissed them, their pinkies locked together, the fringe of his chestnut hair mussed against his brow, his gaze shining with some hopeful, tender, stupid something that had her rolling her eyes simply so she wouldn’t have to meet it.

Yennefer found the immature impulses he inspired in her both bizarre and discomfiting. Not just the persistent insults and jabs and bickering but the moments of playful wrestling, the breathless laughter, the mornings indulging in simple sexual pleasures, the days aimlessly exploring the city, and the evenings drinking far, far too much alcohol. All very unbecoming for a woman of her age.

She could not bring herself to care.

His blue eyes watched her over the line of her knuckles.

He thought himself oh so clever and subtle and discreet, that he had found some loophole to the boundaries she had erected, but he was a _fool_.

And she wanted him anyway. She wanted him.

“You have offered this before,” she said, extracting her hand from his but not pulling fully away, resting her palm against his chest. “Last winter in Novigrad. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” said the poet. Her fingers tapped along the jut of his collarbone, splayed across the round of his shoulder, tipped up on their nails to drag through the hair along his sternum.

“Do you remember what I said?” Yennefer trailed a single finger down the center of his belly, dipping into the wrinkles along his navel from his hunched posture. She pinched at a roll of skin, and he yelped and swatted at her.

“That you would ruin me,” he breathed, in a tone that said he found the idea pleasing, arousing. He looked thoroughly debauched already, his pupils blown dark and neck darkened with bruising by the work of Yennefer’s mouth, reddened lines from the sharp of her nails scratched along his shoulders.

He looked at her, soft lips parted, leaning toward her on the bed, and she knew that he would allow her to do worse, to wreck him, to destroy any thought in his head but that of her, to keep him pressed flat beneath the heel of her hand and squirming as she desired.

It enthralled her. His easy submission to her whims.

She could hurt him. She _had_ hurt him already. With the lash of her tongue as much as the strike of her hand.

Far worse still, he could hurt her.

Their mysterious and evolving bond was a two-way thing, messy and dangerous and unwise to lean into without grasping its true nature. It was not and could not be casual. It resisted all easy definitions and obvious answers. Even as she twined herself around him, clamping down, intent on stealing his breath, he tangled around her in return. This was truly and inescapably foolhardy.

But.

A shudder ran down his body as she lifted his balls and soft cock in her hand, sharp fingernails resting but not biting along the filling swell of his flesh.

Yennefer could yet exact some control here, she told herself.

If she was to be a pawn in the game of some mysterious source beyond her reckoning, then at least she would have a damn good time being so.

Her defenses had weakened. She could no longer bring herself to flee.

“I did say that I would ruin you,” she said. “Among other things.”

“Are we talking about this?” he said, blinking. “Now?”

“No,” said Yennefer and rolled her thumb over his foreskin. The idiot didn’t flinch, his hands resting on his bare thighs, his expression open and _trusting_ of all things.

Somewhere along the way, he had come to lose his fear of her. He pushed back when she prodded. He questioned and demanded and antagonized. He dared to reach to hold her in the night. He tested the limits between them, wriggling his way through the cracks in her crumbling resistance.

Jaskier wet his lips and looked up at her with unabashed sincerity, a touch of anxious anticipation.

“Well then,” he said, voice gone gravelly with arousal. “Give me a taste.”

“Of what?” Yennefer asked, though she did not have to slip into his mind to know what was meant.

“Ruin me,” he said, voice breaking in an artfully breathless way that would have sounded genuine except for the way that he looked at her. Unable to avoid meeting his eyes, she saw the untempered desire in them, the submissive duck of his head betrayed by their knowing glint.

Her control here was but an illusion. Her control here was a fantasy that he allowed her.

Her grip tightened around his erection as the skin stretched tight and full, and her thumb swept over the head to find him already leaking for her, a wetness that slicked the drag of her hand as she fisted around him. Her strokes were too slow to satisfy, holding tighter than she knew he liked, and the pressure of her long fingernails on her other hand threatened the soft skin of his balls cupped in her palm.

If he wanted a taste, she would give him a taste.

“Do you remember your word?”

“Mmmhmm.” He nodded, eyes falling shut, the muscles in his thighs jumping as she shifted her grip.

“Tell me.”

“Cantaloupe.”

“Excellent,” she said, pausing in a long stroke up his erection to hold him delicately with two fingers under the head in a shifting touch she knew was far too little sensation. “You will not get relief tonight. Or the next.”

“You witch,” he groaned, the word more fond than anything, but a nail scraped his sensitive inner thigh in retaliation.

“None of that,” said Yennefer. “Or I’ll make it a week.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said, cheeky and breathless.

She would.

She enjoyed denying him, watching him writhe and pant in increasing desperation, but on most occasions, she had found herself woefully bad at doing so for any substantial length of time.

As evidenced in a different sense by the fact that she knelt here in bed with him yet again, deigning to continue this.

There always came a point when withholding his pleasure became a denial of her own, and that just wouldn’t do. Yennefer refused to hold herself back from her desires. She would not be bound by practicality or temperance or any of the other supposed virtues that had been beaten into her throughout her early life.

She exacted control here. She set the limits and determined the boundaries, thrilling at the thought of holding this foolish man in her unflinching grasp. Or she could continue to tell herself that.

Perhaps it was her sense that had fled.

No matter.

It was only mid-morning, the warmth of a summer night blooming into what promised to be a sweltering day. She could make the next two days feel impossibly long. She was in control.

“Lie back,” said Yennefer, and Jaskier obeyed at once, flopping gracelessly back onto the mattress. He shimmied his hips to get comfortable, flushed cock bumping against his belly, and she spared a moment to take in the sight of him stretched out before her. Naked and vulnerable, thighs spread and underbelly exposed, head lolling back against the pillows to bear the line of his throat.

Damn all the consequences.

Yennefer leaned to press her lips against his erection and hum.

* * *

It took nearly an hour for the poet to realize that she had not spoken falsely.

She truly aimed not to allow him relief this day or the next.

“ _Yen_ ,” he whined, hips rising off the mattress in little thrusts that sought more than the teasing touches she offered him. “Come on.”

The clipped abbreviation of her name gave her pause.

“You’ve been calling me that lately,” she said. No one ever had before. Most nicknames in her past had been insults. _Crooked girl. Piglet. Witch._

“Since-- _ah_ , s’casual,” Jaskier slurred.

He looked dazed, his lips parted as he exhaled ragged puffs of air. She could hardly brush him with the pads of her fingers now without eliciting a sharp intake of breath.

“You believe that the terms of this… arrangement,” she said, hesitating over the word, “entitles you to the use of nicknames?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “You call me all sorts of things.”

“Insults, you little idiot. I insult you.”

He shrugged.

“S’only fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” said Yennefer.

She dipped her head back to kiss along the jut of his hip, pointedly ignoring his straining erection.

“Yen,” he breathed, pointedly drawing out the shortened name. “ _Please_.”

Yennefer found she quite liked the sound of that. Her name and a desperate plea on his lips.

“Begging won’t do you any good,” she said.

And she was lying.

* * *

The long morning stretched into afternoon.

Yennefer did not allow the man to leave their bed except to attend to urgent bodily functions, stopping short of tying him to the headboard only because he followed her orders so willingly. He was pliant and yielding to her whims, if as vocally defiant and irritating as ever.

Unbound, he could leave if he truly wished to. He could touch himself. He could end the teasing in a last wave of frustration, push her aside and put an end to the game.  
He did not.

Yennefer left him on occasion to procure food or drink from the tavern’s kitchen and returned each time to find him just as she had left him. Naked and sprawling and gone soft in the meantime. His arms pressed above his head, though no ropes tied him. His chest rising and falling with easy breaths but not sleeping, his face tipped toward her, floating in that hazy space she had known her other submissive partners to slip into during games like this.

But she had never done something quite like this before. With quite so high a risk or so tantalizing a reward. Yennefer had never been so invested, never known another’s body and reactions and tells well enough to drag things out to this extent, never had anyone hold her attention, never trusted--

She smoothed all thought from her mind. Such things could be worried about later.

For now, everything narrowed to the little bed and the man she kept in it.

She allowed him to kneel to feed him orange slices and bits of bread dipped in warm stew. Their eye contact remained steady as his tongue flicked across her fingers, chasing errant flakes of bread. She pressed a brimming mug of ale to his lips and tipped back as he drank, his eyelashes fluttering.

As the night closed in, she kneeled above him, her thighs bracketing his head, her hands tangled in his hair as he pressed his mouth between her legs.

She watched him, his eyes raised, until the settling dark stole the sight from her, and she shivered through the rising swell of her own pleasure.

* * *

The next morning, a sharp rap on the door to the spare room woke them.

“Knock, knock, ya horny fuckin’ bastards,” came the bartender’s voice through the heavy wooden door. “Some fancy cunts left a note. Cidaris crest and all.” Tiff promptly shoved a neatly-rolled piece of parchment beneath the gap under their door.

As the bard blearily fumbled into consciousness, Yennefer rose from bed to retrieve the parchment from the dusty floorboards, cracking the seal and spreading it open across Jaskier's naked chest.

It was written in a fine hand and smelled faintly of a familiar, pungent perfume.

The scent had wafted in dense clouds from that godsawful minstrel who Jaskier claimed as his most hated rival. Enough to wrinkle one’s nose and inspire instant dislike for its wearer.

Yennefer could not fault Marx for the impulsive stabbing. She understood very well the ways that her bard could drive one to wish to main, strangle, or otherwise inflict bodily harm upon him. She felt compelled to do so at least once an hour.

But the flare of anger that had spiked in her chest when the troubadour of Cidaris dared to follow through was less expected.

It had hardly seemed an argument worthy of drawing blood, especially in so vulnerable an area. One fumble and a twist of the wrist and the major artery in the thigh may have been severed. Yennefer’s skill in healing magic did not extend to mortal injuries, and a wound like that could drain the body of blood in minutes.

Preventing the little idiot from bleeding to death in some petty squabble would have proven to cause quite a headache indeed.

“‘As a token of sincerest apologies’,” read the poet, the ornate scroll unravelling against his naked chest, “the Honorable Valdo Marx, troubadour of Cidaris, extends a warm invitation to the bard Jaskier and his travelling companions.’”

“Is it sincere?” asked Yennefer. She had returned to kneel across his bare thighs after retrieving the invitation from the floor. Her hand settled on his morning erection, a light pressure with no promise of more.

“As sincere as the twat can ever be.” Jaskier scoffed. “Though he deliberately neglected to use my title. Twat.”

“You neglect to use your title yourself.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “But my dearest Valdo only plays at being a noble. He was born a simple commoner.”

“As was I,” said Yennefer.

“A commoner, yes,” said Jaskier, his expression sobering. “But never simple. Even that crooked farm girl had more panache than Valdo Marx does after all these years spent at court.”

“Certainly should never have shown you that,” she said, burning in shame at the vulnerable memory of pressing the image of her twisted form into his head. “You clearly don’t know how to hold your tongue and forget it.”

“Don’t want to forget,” he said.

“Keep your sentimental foolishness to yourself or you won’t find relief for a fortnight.” Her fingers flexed once around his cock and released him, brushing along his belly.

“Right then,” said the poet, tossing aside the invitation with little regard for where it landed. He reached for her, open palm skimming her waist. “We have just enough time to finish this little game before we have to be off.”

“Oh, do we?” asked Yennefer, and she saw the moment that the man beneath her realized his mistake. “I believe I am meant to be the one to make that determination.”

“Ah,” he said, swallowing hard, “but these sorts of functions drag on into the wee hours of the morning. I will no doubt be asked to perform. We’ll be bogged down in pleasantries for ages and _ages_.”

“Then refuse the invitation.” _Say your word_ , her eyes challenged.

She knew he would not.

“And give the bastard the satisfaction of having some new affront to hold over my head?” He affected the posh, nasally accent of the dapper minstrel. “‘Oh my dear boy, remember when I so graciously offered my ever so humble apology for my egregious behavior and was soundly snubbed for my troubles?’ Naw, no thank you.”

“Very well,” said Yennefer. She tweaked the rosy peak of his nipple, rolling it between her fingers and ducking close to flick her tongue along the flesh for good measure.

“Fuck,” gasped Jaskier, his head rolling back against the pillows.

“You requested ruin,” she said. Her breath stirred the hair on his chest and ghosted along the wetted skin, inspiring a shiver.

“Suppose I did,” he mumbled, sounding resigned to whatever torture she intended to enact this evening.

“Suppose you did,” she said and endeavored to ruin him.

17

As the afternoon lengthened, the pair retrieved their mounts from the nearby stableblock where they were boarded and rode together toward the upper levels of Cidaris. The invitation had promised rooms for the night and specified to arrive early for pre-banquet freshening, so neither were fully dressed in their formal attire.

Yennefer’s black gelding had grown smitten with Jaskier’s grey pony in their time stabled together and walked close enough to his side that their stirrups clinked together. The pony, meanwhile, fussed and twisted from time to time to call back to the Witcher’s mare. Roach, who had seemed quite content nibbling hay in her warm accommodations and pointedly did not call to him in return.

“That’s alright, Grey Man,” said the bard, patting the pony’s shaggy mane as he urged him forward. “She doesn’t like me much either.”

The height difference between the two animals put Jaskier’s head roughly at her hip. She peered down in amusement at him as the pony rose to a bouncy trot to keep up with her gelding’s rolling walk while the cobblestone streets curved into a serpentine up the steep hill the city perched upon.

“Where did you find such a creature? The circus?”

“I’ll have you know that he was a gift, and I cherish him dearly,” said the bard, even as the pony spun around again to scream shrilly for the Witcher’s mare, shaking its head with a vigor that yanked at Jaskier’s arms. Jaskier struggled to right him, nudging with legs that hung comically below the pony’s sides. “Get ‘round, you little hellion.”

“Sure sounds like you cherish him.”

“Rather him than climb this dreadful hill on foot.”

After a time, they reached the border of the city’s uppermost walls together, where a checkerboard terrace stretched to a marble balustrade that looked down over all of Cidaris below. Within the central walls stood the commanding, white-washed fortress that served as the royal residence, surrounded by the pristine streets of the upper town.

The view from such a height was dizzying and spectacular, the round backs of the clusters of islands beyond the harbor beginning to warm with evening light as the sea glittered with distant, flickering waves. The poet took a moment to stand in his stirrups and look out to sea, flushed pink with the climb even riding rather than walking, grinning without restraint, looking ridiculous in his vibrants silks as the antsy pony pranced in place and his lute case thumped against his back.

Her musings were interrupted as he was forced to grip at the gaudy feather cap he had donned for the evening or risk the horrid thing blowing off his head and over the rooftops of Cidaris. Yennefer could not say it would be much of a loss.

He whipped the offending cap from his head to hold it against his chest and laughed into the buffeting wind, his mount taking that as its cue to again scream a high-pitched whinny, its nostrils quivering.

“Would you look at that view, huh, Yen? _Whew_.”

She did not look at the lavender clouds streaked over the shimmering water far below, flags flapping over the soot-streaked chimneys and sails of great ships filling as they returned to port. She looked at the laughable moron on his little pony beside her and fought the sudden, crippling, and completely absurd urge to hoist him by the collar and dangle him over the balustrade at the edge of the terrace.

She resisted said urge. But only just.

An official escort swathed in the colors of Cidaris met them at the raised portcullis set in the central walls. Yennefer dismounted and handed off her gelding’s reins to a waiting attendant, Jaskier following suit.

Their escort led them up the empty street to pause at the front gate of a truly extravagant residence, a pristine front garden giving way to a central building of stucco and stone and solid beams of stained wood. The prominence of the building and copious balconies and terraces that wrapped around the structure promised an unparalleled view of the city below, made moot by the gathering dusk.

As their escort led them through the iron gate and into the garden, the last glimmers of evening light softened ornate stonework and carefully pruned hedges, and the sound of music and distant conversation rose from the residence.

“Ah! There you are!” Valdo Marx hurried toward them and drew her bard close to kiss both cheeks, tossing back his blond curls as he did so. His perfume reeked even more pungent than it had at their first meeting, and Yennefer struggled to keep her expression serene and unbothered. Jaskier seemed to be enduring a similar struggle as he kissed Valdo's cheeks in return. “My dearest Jaskier.”

“Good evening, Valdo,” he said, the perfect picture of courtly posturing. “Your estate is truly beautiful. I look forward to a delightful evening.”

“And the Lady Yennefer,” said the minstrel and proceeded to dare to take her hand and brush his lips against her knuckles. She smiled tightly, and the man had the good sense to release her while he still had his fingers.

“Your rooms await,” said Marx, clapping his hands together. “Please join us on the back terrace when you're ready. Oh and Jaskier, I hope you'll play some of your newest compositions for us. My company would be deeply amused by your little folk ditties.”

The irritating man dipped into an exaggerated bow and was off before either could return the false courtesy.

“Fuckin' hate that guy,” muttered Yennefer as their silent escort led them into the house.

“You have no idea what it does to me to hear you say that,” Jaskier said, pressed close to speak against her jawline, his body warm beside her as they walked through the well-lit halls of Marx's residence.

The night was young.

Yennefer had time to find out.

* * *

In their earlier preparations for the banquet and climb to the heights of Cidaris, Jaskier’s urgent desire had slackened, been nearly forgotten, but she watched it return to him with force as she stepped close to him beside the broad, copper tub that steamed with a freshly-drawn bath.

Deft fingers flicked open the buttons on his doublet one at a time, slipping beneath to tug his undershirt free of his pants.

“Do we have time for this?” he asked.

“No,” said Yennefer and dropped her dress to the floor, stepping free of it and into the steaming tub. “Get in.”

“Right,” said Jaskier. He made to divest himself of his clothing and carefully fold it on a nearby bench to avoid wrinkling the delicate fabric.

“Don't bother with that,” said Yennefer. “You won't be wearing that kitsch.”

“I won't?” He blinked at her. “I haven't brought anything else.”

“I have,” she said and watched him frown in deepening confusion. She hadn't brought any bags and the summer dress she wore was far too sheer to conceal anything beneath it. “If you’re to be on my arm during this function, I can’t have you dressing like that. It’s unbecoming. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“How--”

Rolling her eyes, she snapped her fingers, and the bard stood before her in a poofy-sleeved, heavily-ribboned monstrosity of a floor-length dress.

“Sorceress,” drawled Yennefer. “Magic.”

“Ah, magic clothes?”

“Illusory, yes.”

“Does that mean I'm still naked right now?”

Yennefer arched a brow, spreading her arms wide against the rim of the copper tub.

“Technically,” she said. Another snap of her fingers returned Jaskier to nudity as the dress vanished. He squeaked and absurdly reached to cover himself.

“Sounds like great potential for utter humiliation,” said the bard and clambered over the edge of the tub to slip into the water with her. The tub was not truly made for two, their legs tangling together as they faced one another in the steaming water.

“Don't pretend that you wouldn't like it,” she said. “Though that's not the humiliation I have planned for you tonight.”

“Oh?” He did his best to appear nonchalant, but the pink flush on his cheeks and his incessant fidgeting beneath the water betrayed him. “And what's the-- what's the plan?”

His breath hitched as Yennefer leaned forward in the water, her shoulders dipping below the surface, and palmed between his legs. He was fully hard again and oversensitive, eyes dropping shut and head dropping back against the rim of the tub. The lamp on the table behind him haloed his head, casting a golden glow on his lowered lashes and shadowing the tempting hollow under his jaw.

“The plan,” she said, settling in to stroke him in just the way he liked, his hips jerking up to meet her hand beneath the water, “is that you do as Valdo Marx asks. You sing your little folk ditties. You play the part of court jester for the evening.”

“I'm-- was already planning on it,” he breathed. “Yen, _please_ , come on. I'm so close.”

She knew he was. He was strung out and achey and desperate from the prolonged teasing and would require only a simple shift of pace, a few more deliberate strokes to fall apart in her hands.

Her hand slowed and then tightened.

“I'm not finished with you yet,” she said and sent a pulse of magic through her fingertips. It solidified into a ring around the base of his erection. As Yennefer flexed her fingers beneath the water, a pulsing vibration hummed through the device.

“ _Fuck_.”

“I assure you that you'll perform quite nicely,” she said and leaned back to reach for the nearby cloth and soap and begin to bathe herself. The poet sucked in several deep breaths and rose from his slump against the side of the tub to do the same.

 _Say your word,_ she thought. She could deny him until sunrise if he let her. And that was the rub. For all her power over him, she would give in to him with one word. She had given in to him for less.

Her control was illusory. No physical tether held him bound. And yet, he surrendered. He trusted her.

He did not say another word the rest of the bath.

Yennefer could not help but twitch her fingers from time to time, simply for the satisfaction of watching him cry out and grip the sides of the tub, fumbling his soap and having to fish it out of the murky water.

He would have to be more subtle than that in the company of others.

She delighted in the anticipation of watching him try.

* * *

As the water went lukewarm, they rose from the bath and dried off. The bard gave a longing look to his vibrant silks piled on the nearby bench and turned resolutely to stand naked before her.

“Right then,” he said, gesturing with a wide sweep of his arms. “Do your worst.”

Yennefer snapped her fingers, and her chosen ensemble shimmered into place on his figure.

The colors were well-suited to her own wardrobe. A black doublet shimmering with silver embroidery, high-collared and held closed along the front with a neat row of shiny buttons. The trousers were plain black as well, tucked into tall, leather boots. No feathered cap to be seen.

The contrast of black fabric and pale skin was strangely enthralling. The sunburn on the back of his freckled neck stood out more plainly, catching her attention.

Here was another show of her control. He could say no. He could slip into his own clothing and rebuke her. He looked less comfortable in the ensemble than his usual garish get-up. He could easily say no.

Jaskier grimaced at his reflection in the mirror in the corner of their room.

“I look like a… visiting dignitary,” he groaned. “Eugh, I look like my father.”

“You look as foolish as ever,” said Yennefer, stepping naked behind him to wind an arm around his waist. She kissed the tempting spot at the back of his neck, her nose brushing through the curls of hair there. The skin burned warm beneath her lips.

Here was the trap, a taste of her own weakness. He could turn in her arms and demand more of her, and she would surrender to it.

She could keep him here instead. Could abandon their game. Could press him against the wardrobe beside the mirror, hold him fast until he shook apart beneath her hands.

Or she could hitch herself up onto the wardrobe and let him fuck her. He would ordinarily not last long in such a state, but she could keep him hard, keep him wanting. She closed her eyes and imagined the bruise of his hands on her hips, the sting of his teeth at her throat, the drive of his thrusts as he held himself above her, held her down.

Even as her grip tightened, she weakened to him.

She stepped back from him and slipped into her own illusory clothing, a black dress that bared most of her back and would billow around her when she walked. Her hair she allowed to fall loose from the bun she had worn through the heat of the day, and she wore no other embellishment, no makeup, no jewelry but the pendant at her throat.

“We look like a funeral procession,” Jaskier said with a groan as she linked her arm with his.

“Keep whining, and it will be.”

She flexed her fingers and sent a longer hum of vibration up through the ring that gripped his cock.

He swallowed hard.

Together, they went on to the banquet.

18

The back terrace of the residence flickered with lamplight and hummed with high society guests in formal evening wear, clustered about enjoying appetizers and sipping on goblets of wine. A gaggle of musicians on the edge of the stone dance floor played a lilting melody but none moved to dance. The lower city of Cidaris far below had disappeared into the twilight.

Curious stares fell on Yennefer and her bard as they strode across the terrace arm in arm, and with the looks from the guests came a tickle at the edge of her mind that could only mean one thing.

Shit and piss, there was another fucking mage here.

“Looking for someone?” Jaskier asked, voice uncharacteristically low volume. Either her clothing choice had sobered him or he actually did know how to behave in polite society. Or, more likely, he had not yet assessed how many of the gathered guests he had a sordid sexual history with.

“Looking for _wine_ ,” she snapped and a serving girl descended with twin goblets and a pitcher at once. Yennefer accepted the sweet-smiling wine but did not drink, scanning the room with fingers of magic.

Her search was interrupted by the clanging gong of the dinner bell as servants moved in sync to swing open a series of doors along the terrace that led into a sumptuous dining hall. Guests began to saunter up the brief flight of stairs and into the house.

She had not expected Marx to have a pet mage, but he undoubtedly did. And the sooner she discovered who it was, the sooner she could keep her distance if at all possible. A practiced mage may be able to sense the strange connection between her and the man on her arm. It was a weakness easily-exploited. Or easily-mocked, in the least.

 _There._ Her magic hummed under her skin.

The tall mage that stood silhouetted by the light from the dining hall was dark-skinned and wore his hair in braids entangled with fine, gold chains.

He turned a dazzling white smile their way, and Yennefer cursed inwardly, tightening her hold on the crook of Jaskier’s elbow. Jaskier lifted his eyebrow in a wordless question, and she shook her head, hoping he would hold his tongue, not draw attention to himself.

 _Shit_.

The mage was not someone she recognized, far younger than her, but that did not make the concept of enduring his presence tonight any easier.

“Yennefer of Vengerberg, I presume,” he said but did not stoop to kiss her hand as Marx had. “My name is Silas, Court Mage of Cidaris. Valdo has told me much about you.”

“Most is likely false,” she said. “You know how these wordsmiths are.”

“You were trained at Aretuza,” said the mage. She did not like the way his eyes slid over her face, a polite smile held on his lips.

“An eon ago,” said Yennefer. “As distant as a horrible dream.”

She liked it even less when his eyes slid to the man on her arm.

“Ah, your little bard,” said Silas. “Will he be singing for us tonight?”

“He can answer that for himself,” she said. And he was not so little in any sense, but she knew any further defense would only deepen Silas’ interest. She knew how mages were, how swiftly they would narrow in on any possible crack in her defenses. And she had dressed Jaskier like her _consort_ of all things. Incredibly foolish of her. Horribly daft.

“Apologies,” said the mage and stepped closer to Jaskier, gaze intense and dark. “Will you perform tonight?”

Jaskier, for his part, did a decent job of hiding how flustered he was by the tall, dark, and handsome mage, but Yennefer was no stranger to the little hitches of breath and faint color on his cheeks that told of his attraction.

“With pleasure,” he said, and Silas’ answering grin was positively predatory. He looked at Yennefer, a knowing gleam in his eyes.

 _Shit_.

She met the mage’s gaze with a hard stare of her own. She had forgotten, briefly, about her plans for the evening, the magic that Silas could no doubt sense.

For a moment, she considered dispelling the charm. Safer that way. Less risk of things going south.

But then, Silas turned a lecherous gaze back to the bard, considering him with hooded eyes.

Spitefully, Yennefer flexed her fingers and felt the tremble that ran through Jaskier’s body as the magical ring enclosing his cock vibrated. He did a decent job of hiding that as well.

Silas grinned all the wider.

* * *

Marx descended on the three of them in the doorway and ushered them in, latching onto Jaskier’s other arm.

“Oh! You’ve met Silas, I see. Wonderful fellow, isn’t he? Simply a marvel,” he chattered, the enormous, bobbing feather on his cap all that Yennefer could see of him without giving him the satisfaction of actually looking like she was paying attention.

“You flatter me, little lark,” said Silas, his voice a low rumble, and Marx swooned dramatically with a breathy sigh.

Jaskier’s face twitched.

Marx led them across a marble dance floor and between long dining tables swathed in gold place settings, before stopping at the head table that stood on a plinth above the rest and gesturing to a row of truly uncomfortable-looking high backed chairs.

Silas settled into the chair beside Jaskier, his ring-encrusted hands folded demurely in his lap. He looked polite and unobtrusive, but Yennefer knew well enough not to trust it.

Jaskier was not looking her way, eyes on the gaggle of musicians that moved inside from the terrace to the edge of the dance floor, the other guests taking their seats, the servants circling the room with fresh wine and spirits.

There was nothing else for it.

“ _Be careful of the mage_ ,” Yennefer pressed into his mind.

“ _Oh hello,_ came Jaskier’s cheery reply, a tickle against her own consciousness. He did not turn to look at her. “ _Long time no eavesdrop._ ”

“ _He is not what he seems. No mage is._ ”

“ _Are you including yourself in that, then?_ ”

“ _Of course I am. Of course. Be careful, Jask._ ”

At that, he did turn to look, and she realized a moment later her mistake. This was the true danger of non-verbal communication. The abbreviated name was embarrassing enough, but the fondness that slipped through their connection could not be fully-obscured.

“ _Sure thing, Yen,_ ” said the answering voice in her mind. She pointedly avoided his eyes, taking a long swig of her wine. “ _I’ll be on my very best behavior._ ”

And as the dinner progressed, he was. For a time.

Servants swept out with a series of courses, each more elaborate than the rest, though Yennefer took no interest in the fare. She had had more satisfying meals paired with dark ale in humble taverns. The sweet wine in her goblet did not suit her palate, and she waved off servants offering her different selections. Better to have a clear head.

The bard beside her had no such reservations and soon flushed ruddy with drink and forgot or ignored her warning, leaning to speak with the other mage. The buzz of conversation and crescendo of music meant that Yennefer could not hear what was being said.

Her fingers flexed beneath the table, sending a prolonged pulse of vibration through the magical device. Jaskier shifted slightly but otherwise gave no outward sign of her little trick, continuing his conversation with Silas.

Through the rest of the dinner, she allowed herself to tune out the rabble. Every so often, she twitched her fingers, varying the pace and intensity of the vibrations she sent her bard’s way. She watched his fingers curl more tightly around his silverware, a faint sweat break out on his brow.

The dining hall swam out of focus. What an utter bore she found the lot of them. The spectacle and the luxury and the pomp.

Nothing bored her about the ridiculous man beside her. Enraged and frustrated and perturbed, yes, but never bored.

“Yennefer,” said Jaskier, suddenly.

She blinked, narrowing back into awareness.

The final course had come and gone, hers taken away untouched, and many of the guests had gone on to the dance floor to socialize, Silas and Marx included. She and the bard sat alone at the high table, Jaskier’s hand on her shoulder.

“Finally over then?” she asked with a yawn. “These functions bore me to tears.”

“Silas said something similar.”

“I told you to be careful of him,” said Yennefer, prickling.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s not what he seems,” said Jaskier with a wave of his hand. “Well, he seems like a prick.”

“Oh? You seemed quite taken with him,” she said.

“You’re nothing like him,” said Jaskier.

“Should I be pleased?” She ignored the warm feeling of definite pleasure that the words inspired.

“Yes,” he said plainly, spurred by the copious wine in his system. “You’re honest. Blunt. I know that every word that Silas speaks has a dozen hidden meanings to watch for. When I speak, he’s assessing me, rather than listening. You’re not like that. And he was rude to the servants.”

“Mmmm,” she hummed. “You’re surprised that he’s no man of the people?”

“He knows where we’re staying. Valdo must have told him. Claimed he could still ‘smell the shellfish stink of the slums’ on me,” said Jaskier, with a wrinkle of his nose.

“That’s mages for you,” said Yennefer with a snort. “They’re all the same.”

“Yeah, but not you, Yen,” he said. “You’re different.”

“I’m ever so charmed,” she drawled, pretending his words did not inspire a seeping warmth in her chest. She bristled at how very weak she was to even the simplest of praises from the poet. _You’re not a totally horrid person like that other mage_ was hardly worthy of the pleasure it inspired, and yet.

“What do you even… do?” he asked, apropos of nothing, the drink loosening his tongue. “You know. For money. I thought mages were ordinarily like Silas. Tied up in official court business.”

Yennefer blinked at him, struck by the knowledge that such a thing had never come up. He knew very little of her past, her day to day life beyond him, and even the small truths she had allowed him felt like too much, too risky, too vulnerable.

“Official court business is a joke,” said Yennefer. “And official court mages are cocks. I make my coin in other ways.”

“Sounds salacious.”

“Fortunes, mostly,” she said. The touch of a blush burned on her cheeks at the admission of such a trivial occupation. Too much. Too risky. She gave into him anyway. “Minor charms and hexes. Menial tasks.”

She could have easily sought a more permanent accommodation, perhaps in the private employ of a merchant or minor lord, but keeping odd jobs and scattered clientele allowed her the freedom to dedicate most of her time and effort to seeking potential leads to restoring her stolen fertility.

There had not been many leads since the fortuitous appearance of the djinn, but she had been somewhat distracted by a more pressing issue recently, thank you very much.

Said pressing issue leaned close to her, lips pressed close to her ear.

“You’ve certainly charmed me,” he said, voice pitched low and slurred around the edges.

Yennefer smacked him on the shoulder. Ridiculous little bastard. Foolish man.

She flexed her fingers harshly, sending a prolonged vibration that had the bard’s mouth parting on a gasp, his forehead falling to nearly brush against her shoulder. She quickly scanned the room, spotting a few guests peering at them curiously. They were being far too obvious. It was unfortunate enough that the mage had caught on.

“Silas knows about our game,” said Yennefer, running a hand through Jaskier’s hair and pushing him back to a more dignified upright position. _Say your word,_ she thought, her hand lingering on his jawline. _Say your word, and I will give in._ “We can postpone it. Ruin some other performance. There will be more opportunities to make a fool of yourself.”  
She knew by his rakish grin that the bard was about to say something completely stupid and embarrassing.

“Oh but Yennefer,” said Jaskier, the dark shade of his clothing deepening the blue of his eyes, “you must know by now that I am always a fool for you.”

Smiling tightly, she fought back the urge to stab him with a utensil.

He winked at her, took up his lute case, and swaggered down to join the other musicians on the marble dance floor.

19

A noticeable change came over the musicians and the crowd around them as the bard swept down to meet them. Even in his subdued clothing, he stood out plainly among the gathering. There was an ease to his posture, expression bright with good humor, his lute held with all the tender familiarity of a well-loved instrument. He laughed and flirted and endeared his fellows to him immediately, several of them clapping him on the back and grinning, eager to follow his lead as they played.

A murmuring hush rippled through the waiting audience.

Jaskier took a moment to tune his lute, careful fingers working over the strings, and as he did, looked up at the high table where she still sat.

Yennefer found the dark doublet and plain black trousers suddenly jarring, out of place, discomfiting. She had dressed him to match her, yet one more symbol of her control, but even so, he held her beneath his gaze, playing her as deftly as he did the instrument.

As she watched, he spun on his heels and into his first song, turning toward his fellow musicians at first to guide them into the melody and then launching across the room to galavant through the crowd, ducking and whirling along to the jaunty tune.

Making a spectacle of himself.

She twitched her fingers.

Across the room, he shot her a grin and deliberately rolled his hips.

A shiver ran through her.

He had her in the palm of his hand.

“He is a queer little thing,” rumbled a voice behind her, Silas pulling back the chair that Jaskier had vacated and settling in to cross one slender leg over the other. The gold chains in his braids swayed as he shook his head. “I fear I cannot parse your interest in him.”

“He gives good head,” Yennefer deadpanned.

The other mage’s rich, deep-timbred laughter rose over the crowd.

“No wonder you have slipped into obscurity. With courtly manners like that,” said Silas, and Yennefer bristled. She found herself straightening her spine in the high-backed chair, lips pressed primly together.

“Obscurity better suits my tastes,” she said.

“I am well aware of your tastes. Dismal taverns in the slums and travelling minstrels and _Witchers_.” He sneered over the last word, contempt dripping from his voice.

“I’d rather spend an evening there,” said Yennefer. “The ale is better, if anything. And the company.”

“Mmmm,” hummed Silas. “Your bard has been delightful company.”

His dark eyes tracked said bard across the dining hall. Yennefer was satisfied to hear that Jaskier had chosen a line-up of his most bucolic of simple folk ditties for the occasion.

“My bard is a delightfully good actor,” she said.

“Yes, I would say so,” said the other mage with a hum of amusement. “Is that little spell for your enjoyment or for ours?”

She allowed Silas to watch her slowly flex her fingers. The bard on the dance floor missed half a step and squeaked on a high note but recovered quickly. He was flushed pink, though whether from the wine or exertion or deepening arousal, she could not say.

“It’s certainly not for yours,” Yennefer said simply.

“What a pity that a musician of his talent chooses to waste it on such… rustic compositions.”

She did not gratify him with a reaction to the jibe, settling back in her chair to sip at her goblet of wine. She knew he was attempting to rile her, force her to reveal more.

“No wonder you and Marx get on so well. You’re as much a braying fool as he is.”

Silas regarded her for a long moment.

“What a fascinating pair you make,” he said.

And he stood and left her to sit alone at the high table.

Yennefer flexed her fingers, reaching briefly with probing magic to press against Jaskier’s mind. She entangled herself in the feeling of his quickened breath and thrum of warmth and tingling thrill of desperation.

He was elated, overheated, and in his element. Pouring the frustrated bursts of sexual energy into his performance. Not in a raunchy sense but in simple passion, bellowing his lyrics and stamping his feet and rousing the crowd into energetic call and response.

He swung well-to-do ladies on his arms and drove reserved gentlemen to pound on the tables and benches and slop their wine onto the pristine linens. He laughed loud and bright and ridiculously brave, spinning a red-cheeked noblewoman past her ornery-looking husband.

Yennefer caught sight of Valdo Marx on the edge of the dance floor looking equally peeved.

And on the bard played, his songs rhythmic and repetitive and rising in a crescendo.

Every so often, she twitched a finger and watched him turn to wink in her direction, feeling him ride the wave of his arousal and divert it into a leap and a bound and a long-held note.

She wondered how different this was from any other performance.

She wondered, with a familiar, painful twinge in her chest, when exactly she had fallen in love.

* * *

After the performance had ended and the crowd settled, Yennefer found the poet on the back terrace. She almost missed him for his dark clothing, blending into the night sky. He stood leaning on the railing that looked over the darkened streets of Cidaris, lamplight warming him from behind but leaving his face in shadow.

Unfortunately, Valdo Marx found him in the very same moment.

“How _dare_ you,” the minstrel scoffed, pointing an accusatory finger at Jaskier. “And _you_.” He wheeled to wag that finger at her as well. “I don’t know what sort of _game_ you two were playing tonight, but I did not find it all that enjoyable. What a horrible spectacle that was. Oh, what utter embarrassment.”

Jaskier turned, leaning back on his elbows on the railing.

“You weren’t meant to enjoy it, you hack,” he said.

“You have humiliated me in my own home,” huffed Marx. “To think I invited you here in good faith, extended the warmest of welcomes-- To think that you indulged in my gracious hospitality and then turned around and-- and--”

Jaskier rolled his eyes.

“You’re making me wish I’d bled to death when you stabbed me.”

The troubadour gasped in affront.

“How dare you. After I went to all this trouble to apologize. After I--”

“Oh, stuff a cock in it, Valdo,” said Jaskier.

The sputtering minstrel stamped a foot with a yowl of frustration and stormed off into the night.

Sedate music rose from the dining hall, a tremulous melody played by a talented strings ensemble. Jaskier had returned his own instrument to its case that rested against the railing. The back terrace stood empty, lamps flickering in a breeze off the sea.

“Jaskier.”

He looked her way. She was struck anew by how strange the dark clothing looked on him, how it intensified the blue of his eyes and paleness of his skin.

She strode across the terrace to him and reached to tug on his collar. The silk doublet took on a shock of turquoise color, striped around the arms with bands of bright purple. She tugged at thin air and settled his ridiculous feather cap onto his head, smoothing her hands down his temples and along his jaw.

He smiled, slow and fond. She did not care to know what he read into the gesture.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked, extending his hand. Yennefer stared at the offered hand for so long that he grimaced, rethinking the gesture. “Have you-- sorry, do you even dance?”

“I spent several decades in Aedirn’s court,” said Yennefer with a snort. “Of course I _dance_.”

“And how could I possibly have known that?” asked Jaskier. “You aren’t exactly forthcoming with details about your sordid past.”

“Apologies,” said Yennefer and pressed her hand into his, allowing him to guide her to the sunken space between clusters of empty tables that served as a dance floor. It was not quite as luxurious as the one in the dining hall, moss filling the fissuring cracks between the smooth stone.

Tired of the ache in the balls of her feet, Yennefer slipped out of her heels and stood barefoot and several inches shorter than the man who clasped her hand.

“Ah, do I finally get the privilege of hearing your tragic backstory,” he teased, pulling her closer by the waist. They began to dance, Yennefer easily following his footwork, Jaskier taking care not to stride on her bare toes. “I promise I won’t write any songs.”

She huffed and allowed him to duck her into a spin, swinging easily back against his side. She could hold her tongue, refuse to give in to his baiting. She could deny him.

“My father died in the Great Cleansing,” she said. Her voice barely sounded like her own, detached and rising at a steady cadence over the distant music. “My mother remarried, and I proceeded to endure a pathetic childhood on a pig farm.”

“Because you were…” Jaskier grimaced, “because of how you were born?”

“And for other reasons. I have learned that there are no limits to potential cruelty,” she said. “I’m sure even had I not been born a hunchback, that my stepfather and the village children would have found some excuse to despise me.”

“That sounds horrible,” he breathed, and she shrugged, swinging a wide arc across the stone dance floor.

“I came into my magic and was shipped off to Aretuza,” she said. “I ascended, served a few decades at court, and realized after a time that the lot of it was horse shit and went off on my own.”

“You gave up luxuriating in palaces to read fortunes,” he said.

“Yes,” said Yennefer, “to read fortunes. Can you blame me?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“There,” she said. “Now you’re all caught up. That’s the whole sordid mess.”

Except, of course, for a fair few details. A fact that did not escape his notice, as he swept a thumb down across the scars that crossed her wrist.

“You forgot the part where you met a dashing young bard who swept you off your feet,” said Jaskier, guiding her into a spin. As she spun back toward him, she shifted her grip and reversed their steps, taking the lead as the distant music swelled. The poet, for his part, did not seem perturbed by the change, reversing his movements with barely a hiccup of hesitation.

“You forgot the part where I don’t have to bring this night to a satisfactory conclusion,” she said.

“Mmmm,” Jaskier hummed, eyes flashing dangerously. “Perhaps the _other mage_ will.”

“Don’t you dare,” said Yennefer. Heat flared in her belly.

“I’m sure he would be a delight to _dance_ with,” he said with a waggle of his brows. It was infuriating. He was maddening.

“Do you have no sense at all?” she asked. “You seem to be endlessly drawn to any man or woman or entity that could snap you in half without a lick of effort.”

“Of course. Don’t you know me at all?” he said with a laugh, and she did know him, all his silly and serious details. “You must know I am drawn to you most of all.”

 _Fuck._ She loved him.

“And the Witcher,” she said. “You cannot deny that you are drawn to him."

Something in Jaskier’s expression softened, his grip tightening around her waist.

“Of course I am,” he said. “I love him. Will always love him.”

“Hmm,” said Yennefer, the sudden flare of heat deepening. Here was what she had fled from in Novigrad. Here was his trap springing closed. The proof of the ways he could sink his claws in even as she sought to ruin him. Here was _her_ ruin. Her weakness.

Their movement stilled, one hand warming her waist, one curled around her own.

“There’s different kinds of love, Yen,” he said quietly.

Here they were, bound together.

She could still flee. She could still twist to gnaw at the tether until she squirmed from his grasp.

Instead, she sank to her knees in the middle of the sunken dance floor, fingers catching in the laces of his trousers.

“Um,” squeaked Jaskier, his hands catching hers. “Yen?”

“I thought you wanted relief, poet,” she said and tugged his trousers down enough to expose him to the cool, night air. He was hard, as he had been most of the night, and twitched as her fingers skirted down the velvet skin to dissolve the magical ring at the base.

He stared down at her in wide-eyed wonder, and his hand rose to brush her dark hair from her upturned face.

She pressed a kiss to the head, holding there as she looked up at him, and he groaned, legs trembling.

“I’m not going to last very--”

“I know,” she said and drew his cock between her lips, sinking down to meet the hand she curled around him.

“Gods,” he groaned, hips stuttering as she began to set a rhythm with her mouth and hand.

The act was exposed and vulnerable and ill-advised. Every rational thread of Yennefer’s being railed against her engaging in such a thing.

She was weak to him. She would give this to him. His pleasure, at least, was hers alone. For now.

She breathed through her nose and focused on the salt and musk taste of him, the sting of wetness at the corners of her eyes as her jaw stretched.

“ _Yen_ ,” he breathed, his hand touching the side of her face, his eyes fluttering shut. His stupid cap looked close to slipping sideways off his head, the feather ruffled by the sea breeze. She wanted to strangle him quiet, wanted to dig her fingernails into his thighs, wanted to swallow him as he spilled into her mouth.

She could draw away and make him ache for another day or so. She could push him until he cracked, until he finally told her no.

But her control was an illusion.

She was only denying herself.

He came with a choked cry between her reddened lips, and she swallowed him down, hollowing her cheeks around him.

For a moment, she considered voicing the great weight of it all, there on her knees on the wide open dance floor with his softening cock still held in her mouth. His expression was dazed and sated, his spread fingers cupping the side of her face.

She could whisper _you have made a ruin of me._

She could tell him the horrible, stinging truth. That she wanted him. His stupid grin and his laughter and the teasing lilt to his voice. The whole garish, reckless, childish, summer-warm mess of a man who gazed down at her, silhouetted by pricks of starlight.

She said nothing.

She tucked him back into his trousers, did up the laces, and shook off the hand that tried to help her to her feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had to split the last section of this chapter because it was Too Damn Long and very different tone-wise so that will be appearing as an Interlude before the real shit goes down in chapter five


	6. interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** : smut with emotions but yen is bad at it, vague forced voyeurism but not the fun kind sorry geralt, brief teacher/student roleplay, under the desk classroom sex, bondage, dom/sub, poorly negotiated sex a few hundred meters off the ground, inappropriate use of a stuffed unicorn... yeah, it's that chapter.

20

Their return to the Moistened Clam from the heights of the city coincided with Geralt’s up from the sewers. He stank of brine and shit and drank a whole pitcher of ale in one long swig as Jaskier regaled him with the tale of his triumphant performance at Marx’s banquet.

“--and then she blew me right out there on the patio.”

Geralt choked on his ale, and Yennefer barely resisted choking out the bard.

Unfortunately for him, she did nothing to resist a determined headlock and unrelenting knuckling of his scalp.

“Ouch! Fucking-- _Yennefer_!”

* * *

The Witcher intended to head out in the morning.

They drank one last night together in the crowded tavern, Tiff pouring them overflowing shots of lukewarm spirits that they downed in quick succession.

“Come with us,” said Jaskier, breathless in the stairwell, tugging at her hands. “Come travel with us.”

And it would have been very easy to lean up and meet him in a drunk and sloppy kiss, to explain it away in the morning.

It would have been easy to tell him, pressed close in the stairwell and breathing his honeysuckle perfume, how she didn’t quite hate him anymore, not really, and actually she--

It terrified her, the intensity of the feeling. The images that thrummed across their bond blurring and colliding. His laughter, his tenderness, his bright spark of stupid, silly, gaudy joy. It consumed her. It rose in a wave and caught her beneath the surge. She drowned in it. 

She gave in.

Allowed the impulse to swallow her. Damn the fucking consequences.

For once in her goddamn life, she put aside thoughts of the mysterious circumstances that bound them and let herself have this pleasure.

* * *

She did travel with them, for a time.

The bard was as exuberant as ever and the Witcher as reluctantly and grumblingly pliable to his every suggestion.

Yennefer understood that impulse now.

She understood it all too well.

* * *

“We’ll be quick about it,” breathed Jaskier against her neck, whispering so as not to wake the Witcher dozing on the other side of the dwindling fire. Their company had camped up a low rise from a waterfall that tumbled into a natural pool, and the bard had gotten it into his head that the rush of the falls would offer some semblance of privacy for a much-needed tumble.

“He’ll still hear us,” she said as he kissed down her throat. 

They began each night with their bedrolls set a reasonable and proper distance apart, and the little idiot proceeded to spend the next hour wiggling and sidling over until his forehead brushed her shoulder and arm slithered around her waist and lips pressed against her collarbone. He was awfully unsubtle about it all, but then again, she always met him halfway.

“Don’t you like it when he hears us?” he asked, and the fire had not burned down low enough to obscure the mischievous glint in his eyes.

She did very much like it when he heard them.

Together, they stumbled down the hill to the water, a task made more arduous by Jaskier’s insistence on burying his face in her neck and Yennefer’s reluctance to remove her hand from inside his trousers.

“Quit biting me, you little bastard,” Yennefer said, tugging at his hair, but her breath quickened despite her protest. She would have an alarming mess of bruising in the morning which she would make no effort to conceal.

“Can’t help it. You taste very good,” said Jaskier and bit her again, rolling the curve of his ass into the tightening grasp of her hand as he did so. “Quit fondling me.”

She pinched a cheek, and he exhaled hard into the crook of her shoulder.

“Can’t help it,” she echoed, low and teasing. “You have a very nice behind.”

Behind the curtain of the waterfall, fireflies flickering over the darkened pond, he clung to the wet stone with white-knuckled hands as she pressed her fingers inside him, spray from the falls wetting their hair and clothing in a fine mist.

He complained later that he could not possibly have known that the crevasse behind the falls was the lair of a dozen or so hungry spider creatures, all of which promptly poured out when startled awake by the lewd cry of his orgasm.

The Witcher appeared in a suspiciously brief amount of time to have not been listening and slaughtered the lot with several broad sweeps of his silver sword.

“My hero,” said Jaskier, swooning theatrically as the Witcher kicked the last of the spider corpses into the water. 

“Put your fucking pants back on,” Geralt grumbled and swiveled to march back up the hill. 

Jaskier tripped over the trousers still pooled around his ankles as he attempted to hoist them back up, and Yennefer caught him by the arm so he would not topple into the water, laughing as she did so.

“You are completely ridiculous,” she said as she re-tied his trousers for him, pulling the laces tighter than necessary. 

“May I just say, in this alluring lighting, you are very--” 

“Shut it. No flirting. We’re going to bed.”

He grinned, looking damp and bedraggled and annoyingly impish in the faint glow of moonlight as he stilled her hands with his own. He directed them lower, where his cock was already hardening against his thigh. She raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t you have any shame?”

“No, not if I can help it.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I’m charming. You like it.”

“You are--”

“Oh, would you just fuck again already so we can all get some fucking sleep?” shouted the Witcher from their campsite.

Grinning at one another, they obliged him with haste, given to rolling on the silty bank.

Yennefer all but laughed through the crest of her orgasm. 

Jaskier pressed a smile into the skin of her thigh.

How good and strange and overwhelming it was to be with him there under the stars. Childishly tumbling in the mud, teasing one another with an affection she had never known before, knowing him better than anyone she had ever known before.

It would not have been easy to put to words, the feeling that rose in her chest as he lay his head down against her belly and breathed out a sigh as though he meant to drift asleep right there by the water. But she felt for a moment, listening to the night insects whirr in the trees, that perhaps she could find the words, that he could help her find them, that they could--

Instead, she urged him back up the hill, muddied and groggy, to their campsite.

* * *

As summer lengthened into fall, Jaskier chose to take up a teaching position in Oxenfurt and parted ways with the Witcher. 

Yennefer found the concept of this foolish man having the audacity to stand up in front of a class and pretend to be a mature adult too dreadfully hilarious not to tag along.

“Oh _professor_ ,” she took to cooing in mock deference. “Are you going to _school_ me?”

“You get top marks, my dear,” he mouthed against her breasts.

* * *

In the week leading up to the start of the semester, Yennefer kept Jaskier cloistered in the attic bedroom of a crooked townhouse on the edge of a canal.

He pressed his wrists above his head to allow her to bind them to the headboard with a silky tether.

He arched into her touch. He submitted.

Here was what bound them: a knot, a rope, a mundane thing easily severed.

If she chose the chain, she told herself, it would not matter if it pulled tight.

He did not pull it tight.

He opened to her, sweet and yielding, as her fingers pressed inside. 

She had many things she wished to try if he would let her. She told him this as he panted with open-mouthed breaths, opening and closing his hands against his snug bindings.

“ _Yes_ ,” he gasped, squirming, groaning.

He never said no.

* * *

The hidden place beneath the desk smelled of resin and old socks and was horribly dusty, but Yennefer did not mind it for the little quake she inspired in Jaskier’s voice as he delivered his lecture.

He was not the sort of professor who ordinarily sat squarely at his desk, choosing to roam about the classroom or gesture broadly or perch in impractical ways upon any available surface. But today, her breath was warm and hot against the fabric of his trousers, and he kept himself very still indeed.

She did not take him into her mouth, choosing to tease through the confines of the fabric. She rubbed her palm against him, and he spread his legs wider, straining the seams of his trousers.

It was a delight to watch him try to keep silent and subtle, to watch the blush creep up his neck. He drank deeply from a pitcher of water to disguise the pink of his cheeks as mere overheating in the stuffy room.

Resting her cheek against his knee, she trailed her index finger back and forth along his erection, feather-light and no doubt maddening. It was his control here that was being explored. To hold still, to not make a sound, to not reveal what salacious things were occurring just under his desk. 

Luckily, it was a warm and lazy afternoon, and none of his students seemed intent on pestering their professor or sticking around long after the bells clanged noisily outside.

When he moved to jump up as his students filed out the door, Yennefer pressed a hand against his thigh to stop him.

She mouthed more intently against his clothed erection, wetting the fabric with laps of her tongue. He whined deep in the back of his throat, and she found that she had missed the noises as he fought to keep silent. 

Unrestrained by the stares of his students, he shifted and wiggled in his seat, crying out as she wrapped her mouth around the head of his cock through the fabric and sucked. She held him with a single hand spread against his jiggling leg and brought him off like that, a sharp gasp escaping his mouth as a stain spread where her mouth had already dampened.

She kissed him at the crook of his knee as his ragged breathing began to settle back to normal and startled as he reached under the desk to haul her up into his lap to fish a hand under her skirts, laughing into her neck.

“You smell like old boots,” he said, and she pinched him, griping about being shoved unceremoniously back onto the desk until he swept forward to bury his face between her legs.

Her complaints were promptly forgotten.

* * *

On an Oxenfurt rooftop, shingles slipping loose beneath their scrabbling limbs, Jaskier peered down at her, catching himself on the line of the roof. He hauled her up by the elbow to keep her from toppling to the alley below, all fond mirth and waggling eyebrows.

“No,” she said. “Do not fucking say I told you so.”

“At the very least, that would have been quite an erotic way to fall to our deaths,” he said. “Let’s find some better way to fuck at great heights next time.” And she tipped her head, considering something.

A muttered incantation found them suddenly cradled by an updraft of wind, suspended in the air above the city. The wind buffeted their bodies, whipping her dark hair into his face.

He squeaked at the sudden height and clung to her, and she rolled her hips against him to find that his erection had not flagged.

“You never told me you could fucking fly, you witch,”

“Briefly, at least,” she said. 

“How long is briefly?”

“Long enough to fuck me.”

“And how am I meant to manage that a few hundred meters in the air?”

“I don’t know, Jaskier. You’re the one with the cock.”

They managed it well enough.

Yennefer arched above him and Jaskier squirmed beneath her. Tufts of clouds skirted the sky just above their heads, and the coastal city shimmered along the round of the ocean below.

The whole thing went swimmingly up until a moment when a hum of pleasure overwhelmed her concentration, and they dipped alarmingly in the air, caught in the next moment by a cushion of air but far enough to suck the excitement out of the act.

For Yennefer, at least.

Jaskier, emboldened by the comforting touch of solid, flat ground beneath them as she lowered them into the cool shadows of an alley, returned to rutting against her in earnest.

“Death wish,” she hissed into his hair as his hips stuttered, her palm pressed flat against the rough alley wall behind his head.

“You’re trying to kill me,” he groaned, sweaty brow dropping to her shoulder. “You’re trying to kill me in the most elaborate and drawn out way imaginable. Just admit it.”

“I admit it,” she said. “Can’t wait to be rid of you.”

Her fingers carded through his slightly damp hair, and she pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. He smelled faintly of ozone and of sweat, and as his breathing slowed against the stinking alley wall, he turned to kiss the curve of her shoulder in return.

* * *

She shacked up with him in the townhouse in Oxenfurt for the season, portalling over her sprawling wardrobe and a broad selection of her more titillating erotic accoutrements. 

As they had through their first winter spent in Novigrad, they sprawled for long hours in the sun feasting on fresh fruits and hard cheeses. They took their morning tea on the rusted balcony looking over the canal, always warm and sunny despite the dull chill of winter. They strolled across the wide swathes of the university quad together and dined at posh restaurants and frequented every stinking, seedy tavern the city had to offer.

And they explored the true breadth and scale of Yennefer’s collection of sexual paraphernalia of varying shape and size and function.

Jaskier’s eyes bugged half out of his skull as his hand settled on the carved shape of a troll phallus, the instrument dwarfing his not small palm.

He endeavored to skip that one, and Yennefer thought that very wise indeed.

* * *

Somehow, it went on like that for years.

Absurd and strange and unpredictable as the whole thing was.

He crooned in taverns, and she sold bundles of herbs in village squares. He traveled with the Witcher, and she joined them on occasion, at least long enough to get rip-roaringly drunk and stumble about getting up to no good.

They stayed together in the townhouse in Oxenfurt, in her apartments in Novigrad, or in shit inns and spare rooms across the Continent. 

To any outside observer, their arrangement could be described as flirtatious, at times romantic, wholly inexplicable, confusing, foolhardy, terribly improper, and outright crude.

But not casual.

There was nothing casual about it.

* * *

Of all the strange and elaborate accessories that Yennefer owned and all of her strange and elaborate relations with varying willing partners throughout her long years, no one had ever guessed correctly for what purpose she kept the life-sized stuffed unicorn. 

But Jaskier took one look at the beast that appeared one afternoon in their attic bedroom and groaned.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea how that could _begin_ to be comfortable in any position,” he said, and she pressed him against the side of the creature and proceeded to make him very uncomfortable indeed.

The main purpose of the unicorn, truthfully, was that it amused her. 

The unicorn had become a test of to what lengths her partner was willing to suspend disbelief and indulge in something intentionally bizarre. 

Some pretended, lying, saying that yes, yes, they had done this before or they had heard of this contraption, they were familiar with such a thing. Some scoffed at it, denied her, as she had known they would, offering the unicorn as the reason to cut them loose and never return. Some indulged her, desperate to please, and those partners she kept a while longer, though always careful to cut them loose before things got too messy. 

Things with Jaskier were already beyond messy. She could not cut him loose even if she wished to. She didn’t wish to.

With her fingers tangled in silky hair, the muscles in her thighs and calves gripping tight for leverage, and her breasts brushing against the arched neck of the beast beneath them, Yennefer found that amusement was the farthest thought from her mind.

Jaskier had taken several long moments of serious verbal consideration to work out the best and most pleasurable way to go about utilizing the unicorn. In the end, he settled on his back across the rump of the creature, the lithe line of his body and jut of his erection looking very inviting indeed. 

Yennefer mounted in the usual way one would a riding horse, careful not to jostle any of Jaskier’s delicate bits with the leg that swung over the unicorn’s back. 

She did not wait longer than need be. She needed him inside her, needed the familiar stretch and fill of him, and she reached a hand back to guide him, gripping with her legs around the sides of the unicorn to shift up and back down again as he sank easily within her.

“Fuck,” groaned Jaskier, one hand settling on her hip. From this angle, he would have a most lovely view of her comeliest of assets but looking back over her shoulder revealed him stretched against the back of the unicorn with eyes closed, brows knitted in pleasure. 

He responded that way to her every time, as though overwhelmed anew by the very idea of being buried deep within her. 

Once, Yennefer had not understood it. A cunt was a cunt. Hers was certainly exquisite, but in time, she would have expected the novelty to wear off. 

She tightened her legs to lift her hips up and back down into his lap, the angle dragging the hard length of him inside of her in ways that should not feel novel, should not elicit the sharp catch of her breath and desperate flutter of heat between her legs.

“Yen,” breathed the poet, his fingers flexing against her waist. “Gods, Yen. That’s--”

She set a rhythm, hips rising, hands pressed against his broad thighs for balance. She thought that she did understand it now. 

A cock was a cock, a warm body, a warm body. But Jaskier was--

He had become something more than that. More than a quick lay, more than a warm mouth and a stiff cock. A familiar embrace, a surprisingly rousing conversationalist, a companion in indulging in worldly delights, a partner in travelling and in mischief and in truly illuminating erotic encounters and in sharing her bed in more mundane, quiet ways, sleeping with his breath against the back of her neck and his arm shrugged about her waist.

Someone important to her.

And she could only hope that he--

No, she did not dare hope.

And she did not dare to attempt expressing what she had come to understand about this thing between them.

She closed her eyes and settled into a rhythm, drawing him deep within her.

In time, her legs began to tremble and give out, and Jaskier shifted up from his sprawl across the unicorn’s back to hold her slumped forward against its neck. 

Neither could offer much leverage in such a position, but he palmed her hips in his calloused hands and began to pull her into his lap. Gently at first and then with more force, urging her hips forward and dragging them back again. 

Yennefer shook, gripping the unicorn’s mane, and Jaskier pressed a kiss to her shoulderblade and held there, their movement together controlled completely by the tight grasp of his hands. She could do nothing but hold on.

She should feel unsettled, caged, and vulnerable. She should feel absurd and furious and terrified.

Instead, she felt--

His lips brushed against her spine, just below where she still felt the ache some days, a ghost of the crooked form she had been born in. He leaned his cheek against her sweaty back and gasped a litany of curses interspersed with her name, spoken hushed and reverent like a prayer.

Even as he tightened his grip and held her hips against him to spill inside her, she did not feel trapped or fearful.

She felt pleased. Wanted. Understood.

Jaskier did not shift her from his lap, keeping her pressed against him even as he softened inside her, a steady hand dipping between her spread legs to touch her there. He gasped out a shuddering exhale as though he found her own pleasure as satisfying as his own. 

As though there was nothing more important to him than holding her close.

* * *

The true nature of their binding seemed ever to evade her, and in the end, she gave up searching. It could not be so wrong, she thought, to lay in bed beside him and close her eyes in the dark to see pressed into her mind an imprinted image of him waking, the morning sun brushing the lines of his body ochre and peach. 

It was during one of those quiet moments lying beside him that Yennefer realized she had not spent much effort on her other desperate search in a long while. 

Her womb stayed barren, she remained mysteriously bound to the poet, and she knew that she should be more unsettled by it all.

She had heard rumors of a dragon plaguing the northern mountains. Their hearts, she remembered from the stories, were said to restore fertility in even the most hopeless of cases. And dragons were creatures of the oldest sorts of magic, intertwined with the very threads of fate.

* * *

Something drew her to the mountains. Fleeting images, garbled words that rushed away when she attempted to make sense of them.

Something urged her away.

* * *

If she could not find the answers she sought through this endeavor, perhaps she would allow it to rest a while. The urgency waned. More and more, she felt something startlingly close to contentment.

Lying beside the sleeping poet, she reached to touch the swell of his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw, the soft bow of his lips.

Perhaps being bound to this man was not the hardship she had once imagined.

Perhaps she had already found most of what she always desired.

Perhaps she could lie quietly beside him for a lifetime or two. Damn the consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	7. part five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** : fade to black bathtime sexy time, non-explicit bathtime dragon orgy, mild gore & canon-typical violence, Makin Love, her cunt is pulling you closer, our idiots being spectacularly idiotic, infertility discussion, pain time, ouchy, and also ow.
> 
> i thought show!borch was boring so pulled more elements of book!borch in here and also the dragon episode makes no fucking sense so hopefully my version made some attempt at rectifying some of that and connecting loose threads

21

The other mage met him on the darkened terrace.

 _The terrace in Cidaris_ , thought Jaskier as he rocked back on his heels, unsure if the buzz in his head was drunkenness or settling adrenaline in the wake of his most invigorating performance of late.

Or perhaps it was the memory of violet eyes following him across the opulent dining hall. A pleasant hum seeped from the back of his skull and tingled down his limbs. Part arousal and part simple delight to be alive and in his element and on a beautiful woman’s arm.

He thrilled each time he caught her eye.

How lucky he was! How lucky to be seen by her, to hold her interest, to play a part in her games for the evening. How beautiful she was with the dark stain of wine on her lips, how cruel she was to drive him mad with desire for her, oh, how very much he lov--

 _Casual_ , he thought, shaking his head to clear it, stepping up to the railing at the edge of the terrace to allow the cool breeze off the sea to soothe his overheated skin.

As he did so, the other mage touched his shoulder.

“Ah, hello, Silas,” he said, trying his best to sober himself. The man was beautiful, limned in gold and tall and still as a statue, and Jaskier’s addled brain found it difficult to remember Yennefer’s warnings. Something something he was an almighty cock.

“That was quite a… rousing performance,” said the other mage, his lips pursed over the word _rousing_. Jaskier flushed with warmth. Ah yes. That buzz through his limbs was partially arousal, his unfamiliar clothing restrictive and skin prickling.

“I have been warned you have an almighty cock,” Jaskier slurred.

Shit. No.

Amusement twitched on the other mage’s lips.

“Hold still,” said Silas with a sigh and waved a hand.

“What are you--” Jaskier blinked, feeling a sudden whoosh of clear-headedness and a foul aftertaste in his mouth. He grimaced. Ah, he’d been rather drunk, then.

“You will need all your faculties for the conversation I must have with you.”

“Typical mage,” said Jaskier, crossing his arms. “Absolutely no fun and horribly ominous for no good reason. Right then. Converse, if you must, but use Common Speech, please. None of that mage-y drivel.”

“I will endeavor to utilize a simplistic vocabulary,” said Silas, and even painfully sober, Jaskier could not quite tell if he was being facetious or not.

Come to think of it, now that he was painfully sober, Jaskier had the sinking feeling that he should be fleeing back to the safety of the dining hall before he got himself into trouble. Where had Yen gotten off to?

“Will we be having this conversation before morning or…?”

“You have quite the mouth on you, little bard,” said Silas.

“So I’ve been told,” said Jaskier as he cocked a hip. Ah, so it was that sort of conversation. Was he being propositioned? The mage was easy on the eyes. His grating personality could be overlooked with some amount of effort. “It’s that sort of conversation, then? We’ll have to make it a quick one. Don’t want to keep Yen waiting.”

“Your lady mage would be wise to teach you restraint,” said the mage, shaking his head. “You do not know who may be listening. And what may be done with the information you so callously reveal.”

“I haven’t said anything. I am the _picture_ of self-restraint.”

“Mmmm,” Silas hummed. “One such as myself does not need spoken words.” He tapped his temple with a slender index finger, and Jaskier bristled.

“Oi, you get your skeevy little mage fingers out of my thoughts!”

“I have already seen what I needed to see,” he said. “I would have thought that a mage’s consort would have developed better defenses to such a thing.”

“We are not-- I’m not-- It’s _casual_.”

“I do not care about your infantile dalliances,” said Silas, “but your connection is far from casual.”

“It’s-- what are you talking about?” He had the feeling that the mage was not referring to the little spell Yennefer had placed on him for the evening.

“You are connected on a far grander scale than I first intuited,” he said. He held up his palms in a gesture meant to placate. “I mean you no harm, bard. Others may not be so kind.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Jaskier, his voice pitched high and tight. “ _Kind_? You and I have very, very different definitions of the word.”

“I am doing you a kindness,” said the other mage.

“Piss off,” he said.

“It truly is odd that she would leave you so defenseless. A djinn’s magic is nothing to be trifled with.” Silas regarded him, eerily stone-faced and eyes cold. “Unless… she is not privy to the true nature of your connection. You have not told her about your wish.”

“She doesn’t need to know,” said Jaskier. “I have everything under control.”

“Listen closely, bard,” said Silas, his expression somber, lamplight haloing his dark braids in a faint glow, catching on the gold of his jewelry. “A bond such as yours is no simple trick. It is ancient magic. But magic that can be easily exploited, even without your knowledge. It is obscured under a myriad of magical layers, but if I was able to see past them in a night, others will as well. Likely with even more ease than I.”

“Shit,” he groaned. _Shit._

“I do not tell you this to rile you,” said Silas, “though perhaps some fear would do you good.”

“Oh and I’m meant to believe you’re sharing this information out of the goodness of your heart? If you really gave half a shit, you’d help me undo it.”

“It is beyond my power to break such a connection,” he said, sounding put-upon to admit such a thing. “Very few hold such a power. Very few indeed.”

“Soooo, you going to share that bit of intel or leave me in suspense for another few hours? Thought I told you to speak plainly.”

“No wonder your lady mage seeks to punish you. You try even my patience.”

“Think how I feel. I’ve had less grueling conversations in temples. With priestesses. And me and priestesses _really_ don’t get on so--”

“No creature of ordinary magic will manage it. Djinns, clearly. Certain species of fae. Dragons,” said Silas.

“Dragons? There’s no such thing. The dragons have all died out.”

The other mage sighed.

“I can offer you no further assistance,” he said. “For the sake of my own sanity. Heed my words if you have any sense left in that empty head of yours. I care very little what becomes of you, but if one with untoward intentions sought to bind a mage of Yennefer’s power through the ties of your bond… it could spell disaster for the very Continent itself.”

“Right,” said Jaskier with a feeble smile. “Sounds suitably grim.”

The other mage spared him a long and pitying look before leaving Jaskier alone on the terrace.

* * *

Jaskier intended to tell her.

He rehearsed exactly the words he would say as he gripped the terrace railing, filling his lungs with healthy gulps of air as he stared down at the faint, glimmering lights of the city below and the darker curve of the ocean.

 _In Rinde, I made a wish,_ he thought. _I did not know what it meant at the time. I still don’t know what it means. I only know that I want--_

His fingers tightened on the railing.

_In Rinde, I made a wish. I wished that you would get what you wanted._

He remembered the howl of the wind and the terrible, guttural screaming that tore itself from Yennefer’s throat. It blurred in his memory. There must have been only scant moments between her bellowed command to make a wish, his echoing shout, and the crumbling collapse of the ceiling.

_I wished that you would get what you wanted, and the problem now is that I still don’t know what that could possibly be._

She would be angry, most likely, that he had kept such a thing from her.

An understatement.

He swore under his breath.

She would be furious.

He had intended to tell her, but before he could appropriately steel himself to return to the crowded dining hall and pull her aside, she found him instead. Her dark hair fell loose across her bare shoulders, and the nature of her billowing dress left him with the impression that she floated toward him on a breeze, legs a sinuous curve and her figure a vision that left his mouth dry, all words evaporating.

He intended to tell her, but then, she took his hand and allowed him to lead her into an embrace on the stone dance floor.

As they danced, he thought _now, tell her now_ , but each time he opened his mouth, he said something entirely different. It felt good, their movements in sync and bodies fluid.

How could he tell her the truth, knowing that it would put an end to this feeling? She would tense in his arms and pull away. The softened look in her violet eyes would go hard and mean.

_It’s my wish that keeps us bound together, and I don’t regret it. I would make any wish in the world if it would keep you alive and here with me._

He tipped her in a spin and laughed, and she caught him about the waist as she returned to him. Her body was warmed by the dim lamplight on the terrace, the corner of her full lips tipped up into a smile, and he tried and failed to remember how he had seen her when she was a stranger.

He had always found her physically beautiful, but now, he could not look at her without seeing her courage, her sharp wit, her cleverness, her quick temper, her stubborn spirit. And the little, unexpected crinkle of softness that touched the corner of her eye sometimes, that touched it now as she looked at him.

_In Rinde, I made a wish. I wished that you would get what you wanted, and for now, maybe you want me. But for how long? If you knew you could have anything, would you be here?_

He needed to tell her. He owed her the truth. It would only end up worse the longer he waited. It was a betrayal of the trust that she tentatively offered him. It was not fair to allow her to tell him truths about her past while he held this as a secret. He owed this to her. It did not matter that it may ruin things. He needed to tell her.

He opened his mouth to do so.

She sank to her knees at his feet.

And he said nothing.

He watched in awe, touching the hollow of her cheek as she held his erection in her mouth, struck by the knowledge that this was more than a simple sexual act.

She was offering something to him. Something open and vulnerable and not likely to be offered again.

He ached to accept it. He wanted to prolong this moment for a lifetime, to break from the current of time and lose himself here. He wanted to stretch each second into hours, burn each detail into his memory, the warm puffs of her breath and the softness of her hair and the dark line of her lashes.

He wanted to sink to his knees beside her and hold her, sob in deep, gasping breaths into the crook of her shoulder and simply cling.

_I want this. I want you. Please let this mean that you want this too. Please still want me after I tell you the truth._

Though he intended to, he did not tell her of the wish that bound them.

Not that night and not for a long time.

22

“King Niedamir has organized a dragon hunt,” said Yennefer as she ran a carved bone comb through her tangles of wet hair.

“Dragons don’t exist,” said Jaskier with a laugh. He luxuriated in the steaming water of the stone bath set into the floor, head tipped back against the rim, the temperature never cooling no matter how long he took to recover from his post-orgasm haze.

Fucking a mage had its perks. The sort of habitual consorting that the pair of them had fallen into over the years had still more perks indeed.

“Mmmm but they do,” she said. “I’ll be joining the hunt shortly.”

“You?” asked Jaskier, lifting his head from the rim of the bath to squint at Yennefer seated at an ornate vanity at the edge of the room. She crossed one naked leg over the other, the long line of her back wet with droplets from her still-damp hair.

“As the personal escort of a hapless noble,” she said with a shrug. “It’s good coin.”

“Geralt won’t be pleased,” said Jaskier. “He hates civilian monster hunts. Would rather keep all the good stories to himself. The bastard.”

“He’s nearby. In the foothills of the mountains.” She tipped her head as though listening to something in the other room. “He has been asked to join the hunt.”

“Cock,” he exclaimed, pulling himself from the water and leaping to his feet. There was packing to be done. “Can’t he ever wait for me? I’ve _told_ him a score of times to leave the truly interesting quests and mysteries for _later_ in the season. I haven’t a thing to wear for a dragon hunt!”

Yennefer rolled her eyes and flicked her fingers, and in a blink, Jaskier found himself dry and clothed. He spun to face the floor-length mirrors along the wall of the bathchamber, tugging at the edge of his new doublet.

Red leather, scaled texture, intricate stitching, a tight fit across his chest. He promptly undid the buttons along the front and smoothed down the unruly, chestnut poof of his freshly-dried hair with a grumble.

“ _Yen_ ,” he whined. “Why must you always dress me in reds?”

“You’re welcome,” said Yennefer.

“Really, the color does nothing for my complexion.”

“Less blood stains. Climbing an unfamiliar mountain slope in the company of a dozen or more trained warriors on a quest to slay a dragon? You’ll slip and skin your knees within the first hour.”

“Magic clothing does not get blood stains, Yennefer!”

The sorceress leaned back in her chair in a luxuriant stretch of her naked body, returning her comb with an audible clack to the surface of the vanity. His gaze dropped to the glimpse of dark curls of hair between her honey-colored legs.

“Perhaps,” she said, her voice dipping into the sultry tones that never failed to inspire a reaction in him, “I am simply pleased with how the color looks on you.”

“Ah, I see.” Jaskier flushed warm under her gaze.

“There,” said Yennefer, her violet gaze smoldering, locked with his in the steamed mirror, “the color looks quite good on you.”

“Ahem,” he managed and scarcely waited for her to lift her hand in a beckoning gesture to turn and scrabble into her lap, clothed thighs spread across her bare hips. He had once been hesitant to do such a thing so eagerly, as she was a fair bit smaller than him and it surely both looked ridiculous and could not remain comfortable for very long, but Yennefer encouraged him, seeming to revel in the feeling of her bard in her lap.

 _Hers_ , he thought as he settled his weight against her, feeling her hand press against the small of his back, her heated gaze focused on him alone. Neither had dared to say such a thing in so many words.

With a slow movement of her hand up his torso, the illusory clothing melted from him again, her fingers dragging through his chest hair.

Jaskier could see in the mirror that his pink blush seeped down his neck and chest as well, disappearing into the dark hair. He watched a hand find the round curve of his ass, watched her kiss along the flat of his sternum, watched her tongue flick against a nipple.

“ _Ah,_ ” he gasped, and she swept the flat of her tongue against his nipple, grazed her teeth along it. “ _Yen_ , come on, I have to be off if I want to meet Geralt in--”

“Don’t worry,” she said, humming against his chest in a manner that had him whining and tangling his fingers in her still-damp hair. “I’ll see that you get off just fine.”

“ _Yen_ ,” he breathed. “Fuck.”

And she did.

* * *

It was not until after Yennefer had finished with him, dressed him in the red leather finery once more, and opened a portal across the Continent to shove him through, that he allowed himself to recall his tense conversation from years ago with the Court Mage of Cidaris.

Yennefer had long refrained from peering into his thoughts except in dire circumstances, but he could never be too careful.

He had had little opportunity to seek a being able to break the connection, limited as he was by his close proximity to Yennefer. He had almost told her of the wish a hundred times, in still moments when they lay together, in the height of their pleasure shivering in each other’s arms, in mundane moments sharing food and drink and each other’s company.

And Jaskier was a coward. And selfish. Greedy for more and more of her attention no matter how much he received, loathe to break the cadence of the queer relationship they had fallen into. He knew that each time he kept silent was a horrible, desperately foolish mistake, a compounding injury that would hurt the both of them all the more when the dam finally, inevitably burst.

But he could not stop himself.

All he could do was endeavor to undo their bond on his own with her none the wiser.

 _A dragon_ , thought Jaskier, as he strode down a dusty road somewhere in the foothills of the northern mountains. A dragon, though he was still doubtful that such a beast yet existed, could have magic powerful enough to dispel the wish.

He briefly feared he would miss the Witcher in Hengfors, Yennefer’s portal sending him a bit awry and forcing him to traipse across a good bit of countryside before arriving at The Pensive Dragon.

By the time he scurried into the tavern, Geralt and his companions were already well into their cups, crowded on benches and thumping on a wooden table laden with empty mugs and plates and assorted victuals. The Witcher clapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a ruddy-faced, pot-bellied man with a hooked nose and a dashing smile who sat on a bench across from him. Two willowy, hardened Zerrikanian warriors flanked the man, both of which steadfastly ignored Jaskier’s flirtatious wave.

“Borch Three Jackdaws,” slurred Geralt. “He’s attempting to strongarm me into killing a dragon.”

“No, no, dear Witcher, I simply asked if you would ever consider hunting one,” said Three Jackdaws. “No compulsion to do so implied.”

“I told him fuck no,” said Geralt. “I don’t hunt dragons.”

“Why not?” asked Jaskier. “Come on then, Geralt, are you really going to make me miss out on a dragon hunt? There could be actual dragons, Geralt. Real, live dragons.”

Real, live dragons who may be willing to do him a teensy weensy favor. How exactly he, a simple bard, would convince said dragons to help him out, while keeping Yennefer from catching wind of the sordid affair, was a concern for Future Jaskier to sort out.

Present Jaskier, meanwhile, needed to be distinctly less sober as swiftly as possible.

He gestured over a barmaid and chugged down half a mug of ale in long pulls. When he lowered his mug, it was to find Three Jackdaws watching him with a strange glint in his eyes.

“You are the Witcher’s bard,” said Three Jackdaws. “Are you hoping to join the hunt?”

“Course I am,” he said. “Wouldn’t miss the chance to see a creature so spectacular for anything. You’ll be going, I presume?”

“Certainly,” said the man, “here’s hoping that the Witcher chooses to join us so that you can come along.”

Geralt grumbled, beckoning for more ale.

“Geralt! Think of the tales I could tell of this one, eh? The valiant Witcher and his most trusted and handsome companion slay a dragon with the help of the dashing and brilliant Borch Three Jackdaws.”

“Beautiful,” interjected one of the warriors.

“He is the most beautiful,” said the other.

“Sure,” said Jaskier, making quick work of downing the rest of his ale. “The hunt leaves tomorrow, does it not? Yen said there’s quite an assortment of fellows heading out on it.”

“Yennefer?” asked Geralt.

“She’s participating. Escorting some noble.”

“Of course,” Geralt groaned. “No. No dragon hunts. I’m not interested.”

It was at that moment that Yennefer arrived in the tavern, a bluster of wind through the open doorway sweeping her furred travel cloak about her imposing figure. Jaskier’s chest warmed through with fondness at the sight. Trust Yennefer to make an entrance.

A weaselly knight trailed behind her, his hand resting on the pommel of a massive broadsword. Far less heart-warming, but Jaskier spared little thought to jealousy. The both of them warmed others’ beds at the same frequency as they had before the start of their strange arrangement, but no new bed partner held their attention for long.

Jealousy was unwarranted. Yennefer always inevitably returned to him and he to her.

“Yen!” Jaskier called, waggling a raised hand. “Come convince Geralt he’s got to join this hunt. He’s being a fool about it.”

Yennefer slipped through the crowd toward their table, managing to acquire a brimming mug of ale on the way over, and leaned to ruffle Jaskier’s hair. He yelped in protest, having only just returned his locks to his favored state of artful dishevelment after she had made a fluffy mess of his hair earlier post-bath. The foam of ale on her upper lip proved momentarily distracting.

“Now, why would I do that?” she asked. “He’s competition. My dear Sir Eyck aims to slay the beast and win himself honorable lordship over an estate in King Niedimar’s kingdom.”

The knight’s eyes flitted among the imposing warriors gathered at the table before settling on Jaskier, offering him a courtly nod.

“Ah, the sorceress,” said Three Jackdaws. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Will you make merry with us this evening?”

Yennefer’s hand rested on Jaskier’s head. He allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of her palm as she scratched idly at his scalp. Sir Eyck’s gaze did not leave him. The young knight, Jaskier realized with a flicker of amusement, was the jealous one in this situation.

“That depends on what this merry-making entails,” said Yennefer, and Three Jackdaw’s eyes gleamed.

* * *

To Jaskier’s delight, said merry-making involved a rented room above the tavern, several fresh casks of ale brought up from the cellars, and a hefty, very large wooden tub arranged in the center of the room brimming with hot water.

“Large enough for five,” Three Jackdaws had requested of the tavernkeeper with a saucy wink. “Or six? Seven?”

Sir Eyck graciously refused the offer with a noble jut of his chin, and Geralt grumbled.

“Urgh,” he said. “Can’t you two ever just go someplace without immediately sampling the local fare?”

“No,” Yennefer drawled.

“You’re no fun, Geralt,” said Jaskier, putting on his most dramatic pout as he leaned on the Witcher’s shoulder. “No dragon hunt? No orgy? How dreadfully boring.”

The Witcher remained in the tavern below, sparing Yennefer and Jaskier a disapproving glance and an obscene gesture as they stumbled up the stairs together.

Sequestered in the rented room, the Zerrikanian warriors, Téa and Véa, leaned against one another in the warm water, drinking deeply from a shared mug of ale, and Three Jackdaws spread his arms wide along the rim of the wooden tub. He watched with clear interest as Yennefer snapped her fingers to divest the both of them of their illusory clothing.

“Mmmmm,” hummed Jaskier with pleasure as he sank into the water. The basin was not quite large enough to avoid a tangle of legs in the center. “I could get used to this. A warm bath with good ale and good company?”

“You just had a bath with me this afternoon,” said Yennefer as she slipped in beside him.

“Eh, you’re reasonable company, I suppose.” Jaskier shrugged, ducking away from her swatting.

“Been together a long time, I see,” said Three Jackdaws.

“No, no, we’re not--”

“We are _not_ \--”

The man held up a hand to quiet them. The intensity in his beady eyes was more than a little unnerving.

“No need to explain. Some connections defy understanding.”

“Um,” said Jaskier. “Sure.”

“Girls,” said Three Jackdaws, and his warriors’ stoic attention slid to him, “which of you would prefer to have the bard first, hmm? With the Lady Yennefer’s permission, of course.”

“Getting right to it, then?” Jaskier swallowed hard as Téa and Véa straightened up, water running in rivulets down their muscled shoulders.

“Not a lady,” said Yennefer, her hand settling on Jaskier’s neck. “And no permission necessary. He’s yours.”

“Isn’t anyone going to ask my permission?” Jaskier squeaked as a slippery leg rubbed up against his beneath the water. He could not tell whose it was, the warriors’ stony facial expressions giving nothing away.

“No,” said Yennefer, but she looked at him in that familiar way she did before initiating situations like this. Jaskier knew he could speak one single word and promptly bring any scenario to a halt. He need not even use his ridiculous safe word, a simple _no thank you_ said with the right tone would be enough.

 _I trust you,_ he thought, meeting Yennefer’s eyes. He knew by the barely perceptible nod of her chin that she trusted him just the same.

As he settled into a night that promised to be merry and pleasurable indeed, Jaskier tried not to think on how little that trust may be deserved. The years-long secret he kept from her was no small thing.

But he had it all handled.

A solution loomed just over the horizon in the form of a deadly, fire-breathing beast with indeterminate magical powers over the threads of fate.

Jaskier had everything under control.

23

The morning of the dragon hunt dawned crisp and clear, a watery sunrise streaking over the misted hills as the company set out, leaving their horses and any unwieldy supplies behind for the trek into the mountains.

Jaskier walked with long strides on the rutted path to keep up with Geralt, the rabble of the rest of the company sinking into the background. The Witcher seemed intent on making it up the mountain as quickly as possible, simply so all of this nonsense could be over and done with.

It had taken a fair bit of pre-dawn pleading for Geralt to finally give in and consent to join the hunt, but Jaskier had managed it, stooping to new lows calling on old unpaid debts and whining and needling until he annoyed the Witcher into relenting.

Worked every time.

“Fuck but you sure missed a _night_ last night, Geralt.” Jaskier yawned, jaw popping.

“My regret knows no bounds,” said Geralt flatly.

“When Téa did that thing where she-- and then Véa took her turn and-- oh! Yen was there of course, and she-- _whew_ ,” said Jaskier, accompanied by sweeping hand gestures. “And let me tell you, Borch is incredibly athletic for a gentleman of his age. How old do you suppose he is? Fifty? Sixty? He’s a bit of a lech but the things he can do with his-- Geralt, are you listening?”

“I wish I’d gone deaf,” said Geralt. “Preferably before last night.”

“Oooh, were we loud? Did you hear us? How did it sound? Scandalous? Pernicious? Because I think my moans have a really nice pitch sometimes, quite musical. It’s one of my many-- Geralt, where are you going?”

* * *

The journey up the perilous mountainside proved to be a trudge and a half, Jaskier giving up on keeping pace with Geralt’s pace and occupying himself with composing verse in fervid praise of Téa and Véa’s vitality and bravery and muscled physiques. The warriors scoffed and rolled their eyes but nudged him ahead of them all the same, tugging him up by the wrist or the collar each time he inevitably stumbled in his distraction on the rocky trail.

Excitement was interjected only briefly in the form of a squawking Hirikka that fumbled across their path, which Geralt restrained the noble Sir Eyck from slaying and distracted with a wedge of cheese thrown into the underbrush.

No matter. Jaskier could rework that incident into an entire stanza with a bit of tweaking.

Yennefer walked ahead beside the young knight, her eyes fixed on the horizon. She had been quiet since the start of their journey, seeming lost in thought, and Jaskier owed most of his missteps to staring at the line of her shoulders and the hand the knight pressed between them.

Véa caught him by the elbow on a particularly steep section of the route, gravel skittering away from his boots and down the mountain slope.

“Next time, I let you drop, bard,” said the warrior. Téa nodded in agreement.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “You think Yen’s alright? Seems a bit off since we set out.”

“It is you who shares an unsettling connection with her, not I,” said Véa.

“Nor I,” said Téa.

“Right,” said Jaskier, ignoring the shiver the uncanny truth of their words inspired.

Unsettling connection was right, unfortunately.

No matter.

The aim of this trip was to do something about that, after all.

* * *

The company made camp as the light began to fade, settling around several flickering campfires. The Reavers snickered and jeered, and the dwarves spat and shook their fists. Jaskier hoped perhaps a brawl would break out and interrupt the dullness that had plagued the hunt so far, but instead, most of them trickled off to bed.

He looked to Yennefer across the fire and found her watching him, expression inscrutable.

“Well, I’m outright knackered,” said Jaskier with a prolonged sigh. “Though if anyone warm and willing wishes to join me in my tent this evening, I would not be opposed.”

“What tent?” snorted Geralt. “You didn’t bring one.”

“I thought you had.”

“Yeah,” he said. “For me.”

“You won’t share? Not even with your most loyal and trusty travel companion?”

“Trusty? That’s rich. Trust you to interrupt my sleep forging a midnight trail with Yen, more like.”

“That’s a new one. You and your tired euphemisms. Allergic to the word fucking? Shagging? Boinking? Perhaps--”

“You dare degrade the lady’s honor,” interjected Sir Eyck.

Jaskier snorted.

“Degrade the lady’s-- oh come off it. I hate to break it to you but that ship has sailed, wrecked, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. She’s likely to degrade mine, if anything.”

The sudden sound of a sword hissing from its scabbard rang loud in the clearing.

The young knight held out his broadsword, a slight tremble running down his arms at the impressive weight. Jaskier blinked at it as it caught the light of the fire. He had the brief thought that the knight must be compensating for something before realizing he should probably be more worried about the very big sword suddenly trained on his person.

“I challenge you,” said Sir Eyck, his eyes wild. “Arm yourself and face me.”

“Ah. Well. _Fuck_ ,” he squeaked, scrambling back. “Ger- _alt_.”

“No one’s challenging anyone,” said the Witcher, his own sword already drawn.

“Don’t be a fool, Eyck,” said Yennefer. “My honor is my own. Not yours to protect.”

The knight puffed up his chest but wisely sheathed his sword.

“Apologies for the violence, my lady,” he said.

It was Yennefer’s turn to snort.

“I’ve seen more violent acts in schoolyards,” she said. “Jealousy does not become you, Sir Eyck.”

“You deserve better than the likes of him.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“Hello, the likes of me is standing right here,” said Jaskier.

“And you do not appreciate what you truly have,” said Sir Eyck.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, slumping back down beside the fire. The knight huffed and stormed off toward the Reaver camp.

The fire popped and flickered as he stared into it.

Sir Eyck was wrong. Jaskier appreciated this thing with Yennefer far too much.

It would be simpler, he thought, if only he appreciated it less.

* * *

The evening only soured further as talk around the campfire turned to the war brewing in the south. Utterly depressing talk of kingdoms falling and creatures going extinct and all of it for nothing.

Geralt seemed on edge and tense, and Yennefer was hardly paying him any attention.

Great.

“I don’t care who kills the dragon,” Yennefer was saying, tone hushed so as not to wake the others. Only she, Jaskier, and Geralt remained around their dwindling campfire. “I frankly doubt it will be my escort. All I am after is its heart.”

“Its heart?”

“It is said to have certain healing properties.”

“Yennefer,” Geralt said severely, “are you seriously after what I think you are?”

“What?” Jaskier piped up. “After what? What is it?”

“Infertility,” said Geralt. “A dragon’s heart is said to cure infertility. But it’s a myth.”

“It’s not a myth,” said Yennefer, her violet eyes flaring, teeth gritted.

“It is. It’s a fairytale. And it doesn’t matter anyway. There will be no killing of any dragons.”

“A fertility cure?” asked Jaskier.

“You must know mages are sterile,” said Geralt. “Like Witchers.”

“I’m not a complete dunce,” he said. “Of course I know that.”

His arrangement with Yennefer likely would have gone very differently if there was any worry of unintended pregnancy. He had thought that Yennefer was glad of that as well. She had never mentioned wanting to bear a child. Had never spoken of her sterility at all.

“No, not like Witchers. Witchers become sterile as a side effect of their mutations. Mages are sterilized,” said Yennefer. “We cannot be given full freedom as a mage without giving up all chances of earthly ties. No family. No progeny. All that’s left is the Brotherhood.”

“For good reason,” said Geralt. “A child has no place on the sort of path that we follow. I’d rather use my Child Surprise as bruxa bait than subject it to this life.”

“Don’t chastise me, Witcher. Turning your back on your child is no noble act,” said Yennefer.

“And killing a dragon for the chance to conceive one is?”

“They took my choice,” she said. “I want it back. Is that so horrible of me? You don’t know a thing about any of it.”

“As if I chose to become a Witcher.”

“You choose to deny your Child Surprise.”

“That’s no business of yours.”

“Then neither is this,” said Yennefer. “Go be a coward somewhere else, Witcher.”

Geralt growled but got to his feet and obeyed, leaving Jaskier alone across the fire from Yennefer.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

 _A child._ Could the answer to what Yennefer wanted be so simple and so strange?

He had sought this truth for years but never considered something so ordinary.

“Yen,” Jaskier breathed. “A baby? You’ve never said anything like that before.”

“Perhaps I don’t tell you everything. This is a private matter,” she said.

“But you? A mother?”

“Do you think I’d make a bad one?”

“I think it’s not worth killing anything to get the chance.”

“So you’re going to lecture me as well?” she spat. “Fuck off, bard. You don’t have that right. I wager you have bastards strewn about half the Continent.”

“That’s uncalled for,” he huffed, “and untrue.” He was unerringly careful when it came to such things, thank you very much. He had never given much thought to parenthood beyond avoiding unwittingly subjecting his sexual partners to the experience.

He had especially never given any thought to parenthood and _Yennefer_.

To something so domestic and pedestrian.

To a babe swaddled in her arms, a child tucked on her hip, to the usual things that came along with child-rearing. To late night feedings and ceaseless crying and scuffed knees and lullabies. To a little house in some village somewhere with a sod roof and a garden and the sweet smell of the hayfields on the breeze.

Did she want that?

More pressingly, did _Jaskier_ want that?

He never had before. Had sworn off fatherhood as a fool’s occupation. As trite and overdone. As something for lesser men to waste time on, while he sought more artistic and meaningful pursuits. Could he ever be pleased by something as menial and simple as family life?

Yes. The answer was yes.

If she wanted it, then, yes.

“Yen,” he said softly. The fire had burned to nothing but glowing coals, and he wished that Yennefer was not so far away, sitting shrouded in darkness, her furred travel cloak pulled tight around her. “That’s really something you want? To have a baby? Raise a child?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” she snapped, irritable. “I want my choice back. I want--” She pursed her lips and leaned forward on her knees to scrub her hands down her face. “I want to have any clue what the fuck is going on with my life.”

“Look, I’m sure there’s ways other than this. Maybe we can--”

“I can’t talk about this,” said Yennefer abruptly, rising to her feet. “I just can’t. Good night, Jaskier.”

He did not move to follow her, hearing the cold dismissal in her tone.

At least there was one surety he knew they both wanted. He too wished he had any clue what the fuck was going on with his life.

But Jaskier was long out of wishes.

* * *

The morning broke to animated shouting. The body of the young knight sprawled in the dust below the camp, blood congealed on his spilled innards.

“Found his duel elsewhere then,” said Geralt, eyeing the gaggle of Reavers gathered around their burned out fire who made a show of grinning and cleaning their swords. “Hope he found it to be a noble end.”

“Idiot,” huffed Yennefer.

“Could have been me,” said Jaskier.

“You’d have the wound at your back,” said Geralt. “He would have caught you running for the hills.”

“Such senseless violence,” he sighed, choosing to ignore the jab.

So far, the hunt would make a piss-poor tale. A dreary hike and an emaciated creature and a thwarted duel and a young man with his bowels in the dirt. No sign of a dragon beyond the black scar the company had spotted yesterday along the ridgeline.

“Get used to it,” said the Witcher, jaw tightening as he turned away from the dead man. “Won’t be the last before this is over.”

* * *

And it wasn’t.

For a long moment after Three Jackdaws and his travelling companions fell through the swirling mists to their deaths on the valley floor below, there was nothing but stillness and the howl of the wind along the cliffside.

“We’ll take down the beast in their honor,” called one of the dwarves on the path ahead, voice uncharacteristically somber.

At the front of their dwindling company, Jaskier had to be the first to unlock his limbs, grip the hanging chain tight in his white-knuckled fists, and continue on.

He thought of the sure-grip of the warriors hauling him time and time again from tumbling off the mountain path yesterday. Of Three Jackdaw’s beady eyes and beaming smile.

A pang of sadness and foreboding gripped him.

Even if a dragon did lurk around the next bend in the path, he didn’t think this misadventure could be spun into any song worth singing.

Something deep in his belly told him he shouldn’t have come on this hunt. That he should have stayed in the tavern. That he should turn back now, before it was too late.

He hung tight to the chain along the cliffside, knowing with a strange surety, a solid sense of premonition that this path would lead to nothing but further tragedy.

* * *

“You did your best,” said Jaskier. “There’s nothing else you could have done.”

“I did fuck all,” said Geralt.

They sat together on the edge of camp, the mountainside below brushed gold with evening. Geralt’s shoulders slumped, his face lined and tired. Jaskier thought he must look similar, showing all forty of his years.

“No, no, you tried. Short of jumping off after them, you couldn’t have done anything else.”

“Yen’s right,” he said. “I’m a coward. I’ve done fuck all for years.”

Oh. The Witcher was talking about something else entirely.

“Let’s leave tomorrow,” Geralt said, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “There’s no reason to keep going.”

Jaskier huffed out a laugh.

“I’ll have another chance to prove myself a worthy travel companion, then?”

“We could head to the coast,” said the Witcher. He stared off at the distant horizon, the blue shadows creeping up the mountains. “Doesn’t have to be just monsters and money.”

_The coast._

“Cintra’s on the coast.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to…”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t want to be too late,” said Geralt. “War’s coming.”

“Cintra won’t fall. Queen Calanthe would die before she lets them take what’s hers. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Three Jackdaws told me that I’m missing something. Figure he meant the child. _Destiny_ and all that.”

“Does sound like something he would say, doesn’t it?”

But Three Jackdaws was dead. Pointlessly and for nothing.

“Life is too short.”

And too long.

Jaskier would live a hundred more years or so.

He could repeat the same empty patterns if that was what he desired.

He could pen verses about the noble Sir Eyck who died for a lady’s honor and the bright-eyed old man who sacrificed himself on their quest to slay a horrible beast and the world-weary Witcher, one of the last of his kind, who refused to kill a creature who shared the same fate.

“Do what pleases you.”

It was Yennefer. It had been Yennefer from the start.

“While you can.”

 _Now_. It settled in his gut with a painful surety. He had to tell her. He had to tell her now.

“Composing your next song?” asked the Witcher, and Jaskier grimaced.

“No… just... trying to work out what pleases me.”

24

Jaskier intended to tell her.

He did.

But when he slipped through the opening of her tent, the magical space stretching far bigger on the inside than the shabby exterior allowed, she stepped close and into his arms. The scent of lilacs and gooseberries tickled his nose as she lay her head against his chest.

He tensed. _Now_ , he thought. _Tell her now._

_In Rinde, I made a wish. I wished that you would get what you wanted. I think I know what that is now, and I want it too. Of course I do. Anything you want is what I want._

Yennefer pulled back from him and whatever she saw on his face gave her pause. She lifted a hand to touch the corner of his eyes where a slight wrinkle of crow’s feet deepened.

“What is it?” she asked. “Don’t overtax your feeble brain with too much thinking. I can tell you’re being stupid in there.”

“No more stupid than usual,” he said with a wan smile. _Take a look_ , he thought. _Please read my thoughts so that I do not have to speak them aloud. Trust me less for once. I don’t quite deserve it._

He leaned to press his lips against the worry lines wrinkling her forehead. When he drew back again, they had deepened.

“I’d fear the mountain had taken your senses if I thought you had any to start with,” she said.

Jaskier intended to tell her.

But.

Maybe in a little while. Maybe in the morning.

“Come on, you witch,” he said, a whole host of wretched fondness poured into the old insult, and she smiled at him, didn’t even tweak a nipple over it, didn’t seem to mind at all. “Take me to bed.”

* * *

Her body intertwined with his, slick with sweat and soft and warm.

Outside, the spring air had taken on a chill as night set in, Jaskier having to huddle close to the dying fire the night before to quiet his endless shivering, but in Yennefer’s bed, he found himself close to overheating.

She shifted her hips against his raised thigh to seek a slow grind of teasing pressure between her legs, and he rocked up against her. He rolled with her, the fine thread of the sheets and plush give of the mattress worlds above the cold earth of the mountainside.

In the wake of their shared orgasm, he told her so, and she laughed against his collarbone, her fingers trailing through the downy hair on his belly as she curled along his side.

“You didn’t snuggle with the Witcher for warmth?”

“He was cranky,” said Jaskier with a pout, “and someone else didn’t invite me into their wonderful, magic tent.”

“My wonderful, magic tent is for people who are nice to me.”

“Hey! That’s no fair, I’m always nice to you. You’re the one who made me sleep alone on the hard and unforgiving earth. A man was stabbed to death last night, you know. _I_ could have been stabbed. Or I could have fallen to my death earlier, and you would have regretted all of it.”

“Mmmm, you’re right,” hummed Yennefer. “Sorry about that.”

“Do my ears deceive me? Did Yennefer of Vengerberg just admit to being wrong? And apologize? Am I feverish? Yen, hurry, check my temperature.” He grasped her hand and pressed the back of it to his forehead, swooning against the pillows.

“Hmm,” she hummed, rapping her knuckles against his forehead. “I seem to have found the problem. Your skull is completely empty.”

 _If only it were,_ he thought, _if only I could stop fucking thinking._

She pulled away from him and settled onto her belly, and his eyes caught on the slender plane of her back, the round of her shoulders. If one knew just what to look for as Jaskier did, there was a slight crookedness to her spine, a hitch to her shoulderblades.

He rolled onto his side to face her, head pillowed on his raised arm.

“Did you always want to become a mother?”

She blinked at him.

Perhaps she had thought he would let it go. That was how things ordinarily worked between them. They talked around their issues rather than confront them. That’s how this arrangement had gone on so smoothly for so long.

But never looking too hard at the cracks in the foundation did not mean they disappeared.

“I dreamed,” said Yennefer, “of becoming important to someone. Someday.”

 _You are important to me,_ he wanted to say and did not. He thought maybe she heard it anyway. He felt no prickle of her mind against his, but maybe she heard it all the same.

He hoped that she heard it.

“What _do_ you want?” asked Jaskier.

He had never asked her, not so directly. Though he had known he needed to for years, he hadn’t dared.

Her eyes met his, their violet hue more surreal up close, too saturated, too intense.

“You,” said Yennefer, voice steady and quiet. “I want you.”

Jaskier let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He’d been holding it for years.

He touched the left side of her jaw, thumb brushing the spot that sometimes, when she was very tired or very stressed, twitched down in a phantom of her old paralysis. He leaned to kiss her there, and as he did, she turned her head to meet him, capturing his lips with her own.

It was not a remarkable kiss, a dry press of her mouth against his. Almost chaste, her hand raised to cup his face, a tremor running through the line of her jaw. The kiss held until the short puffs of breath through his nose were not enough, and he drew back.

Her lips were parted, eyes closed, and at once, Jaskier gave into the impulse to kiss the round of her eyelid, the ridge of her nose, the soft skin of her temple, the frizzed sweep of her hairline, her fingertips when she tried to stop him, her lips again when her half-lidded gaze met his.

“I would have regretted it,” said Yennefer, after a time, her fingers splayed on his cheeks, their foreheads pressed together, “if you had-- if the mountain had taken you from me.”

It was suitably melodramatic. He might have written it into one of his songs as a younger man.

Jaskier had never been more charmed.

“Regretted what?”

“Not doing this.”

She kissed him again in a long swell of in-drawn breath.

How good it was to kiss her. As sweet and soft as he always dreamed it would be.

How unreal it felt. He had the impulse to reach and pinch himself and accidentally caught the skin of her thigh instead. She yelped and nearly headbutted him, and he kissed her in apology, deep and still and soundless.

“We _have_ done this before,” he said as they parted only far enough to gasp against each other’s mouths. “We did this the very first time.”

“That didn’t count,” she said. “It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t know you.”

“And now you do?” He meant it teasing, but it came out too breathy for that.

“Now I do,” she said.

“So you really want--”

“Everything.”

“Yeah?”

“All of it. Everything.”

“It’s yours. Do you want-- gods, Yen, anything.”

They spoke against each other’s lips, a long slur of rambled words and muttered nothings. Only when Yennefer touched the corners of his eyes as she had earlier did Jaskier realize there were tears there.

“We could--” he said, and his breath caught in his throat. “A little house somewhere. By the sea, maybe. And I promise, we’ll find some way to-- I mean-- a family? Yeah? A little life somewhere.”

Her face crumpled with a sob, and he cooed and shushed her, tucking her body against his. She kissed him, and it was wet and too warm.

“We’d be awful at it,” she laughed through her tears. “Pity the unfortunate child with us for parents.”

“No matter,” said Jaskier as he rocked her in his arms. “We have time. Nothing but time.”

“Still. Let’s not waste much more on fits of crying and sentimentality,” said Yennefer and swiped the backs of her hands across her cheeks. She smiled, shivering somewhat along the curve of her lips. “Take me to bed, poet.”

And he did.

Yennefer brought him to hardness with sure touches, and Jaskier returned the favor, fingers slipping into the slick heat between her legs.

He kissed her all the while, clumsily, messily, earnestly. He had imagined this a thousand times. Had imagined himself composed and gentle and dizzyingly romantic. The truth of it edged on frantic, tears still wetting the corners of his eyes, her bottom lip slipping between his teeth, her panting breaths hot against his open mouth.

Rather than cease their kissing, Yennefer hitched a leg over his waist and drew him to her. He whimpered as her guiding hands shifted his hips, pressed the head of his erection between her legs. She teased, drawing his cock through her wet folds, holding him a moment against the swell of her clit.

Jaskier could feel their shared heartbeats there, wild and thrumming.

It was far too much, nearly too much to bear, made worse by the burn of her kiss, the intensity of her violet gaze.

He wanted to tell her then, even as she ceased her teasing and guided him to slip inside of her.

He wanted to tell her as he shifted his grip on her raised thigh and pressed with small thrusts up into the heat of her body.

He wanted to tell her as he kissed her brow, her cheeks, her reddened mouth.

_In Rinde, I made a wish. And I would make it again. I have made it every day since. I am wishing it now. Can you hear me? Are you listening?_

Lying face to face, he moved in shallow rolls of his hips. No leverage for anything more, but it did not matter. He held her, hand on her waist, her breast, her jawline, and she held him in return, tugging at his hair, slipping through the sweat on his back, gripping a handful of his flexing behind to draw him closer still.

 _I would wish it again,_ he thought, pressing his forehead against hers. _And more, oh gods, and more. I wish that this could last. I wish that you could keep on wanting me. I wish you happiness and safety and no more pain._

She tightened her raised leg around his and shifted to meet his thrusts.

_I wish. I wish. I wish._

Jaskier reached the peak of his orgasm with wishes and entangled images blurring in a rush through his thoughts. An imprint of the burnished mountainside, golden scales, tongues of fire, her hair tousled by the wind, fury in her expression, fire, fire, the distant haze of the coast.

He closed his eyes as the burn of released tension ached down his thighs.

They drifted off to sleep that way together, still pressed inside her, clinging, a different sort of ache swelling near to bursting in his chest.

* * *

Jaskier woke in the pale light of dawn to find Yennefer still curled against him, her chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep. She looked very small, her arms folded up to her breasts, her dark curls mussed across the pillow. He tucked his arm more snugly about her waist and leaned his cheek against her sweet-smelling hair.

He had not told her.

He still intended to.

He would tell her when she woke, he decided. He would tell her.

“Yen!” called Geralt from outside the tent, startlingly loud in the stillness of morning. “ _Jaskier_ , fucking get out here.”

25

The sky blushed red over the mountains.

The dwarves were long gone, their fires extinguished. The Witcher’s fire still glowed with coals, his bedroll lain beside it, but otherwise, the campsite stood empty.

“Fuck,” said Yennefer as Jaskier stumbled out of the tent behind her. She had dressed them both in a quick snap of her fingers, scrabbling out of bed with haste at Geralt’s shout. “How long have they been gone?”

“Don’t know,” huffed Geralt.

“How do you not know? Aren’t Witchers meant to be observant?”

“Was off foraging, scouting out the mountain. There’s a path that heads east that might be--”

“Come on, we’re wasting fucking time,” said Yennefer as her tent shivered and disassembled behind her, folding itself neatly into her pack. Jaskier’s lute case leapt free of the fabric and whooshed the air from his lungs as it thunked against his chest. He fumbled to catch it in his arms.

“Yennef-- would you slow down? Perhaps it’s just me, but it is far, far too early for--”

“It’s just you,” she said, her fur travel coat fluttering around her legs as she slung her pack over her shoulders and whirled on them, thumbs tucked into the straps. “Which way have they gone, Witcher?”

Geralt regarded her a moment with a tilt of his head.

“Do you really mean to kill the dragon?” he asked.

“Do you really mean to wait around and see if the dwarves do it for me?”

He grunted in acquiescence and trotted off to lead the way out of camp and down a sharp embankment. Yennefer followed at a jog, the tail of her coat snapping in the breeze.

“Come on, Yen,” gasped Jaskier, lute case thumping against his back as he hurried to keep up. “Is this really necessary? It wouldn’t take long to make it back down the mountain. We could leave the dragon slaying to Geralt. We could--”

“Quiet,” she said, “you’re right, it’s much too early for your yammering.”

“Yen dearest, if I slip on this precarious mountain path and fall to my death, it’s no one’s fault but yours.”

Grumblingly, she paused and extended a hand to him.

He clasped it in his own, squeezed her palm. He could not fully understand this headlong dive into danger, but he did know well enough the desperation that drove it. There was a pinched tightness in her expression as he looked at her.

_In Rinde, I made a wish. I wished that you would get what you wanted._

Yennefer wanted the world.

Jaskier wanted to give it to her.

“Hurry up,” said Yennefer curtly, tugging him ahead.

Together, they hurried down the mountainside after the Witcher, hand in hand.

* * *

The dwarves stilled in place on the path along a tumble of scree with a muttered word from Yennefer. The mouth of a rather foreboding looking cave yawned just ahead. Geralt trailed behind, the path rounding the edge of the mountain clear enough to follow without his guidance.

“Oooh, have you always been able to do that?”

“Of course, I have,” she huffed, moving past the frozen bodies of the dwarves. “This is nothing. Child’s play.”

“Oh dear, don’t say that,” said Jaskier, “you know how hot and bothered your infinite power makes me. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you--”

“Jaskier! _Quiet_."

Forgetting her haste for a moment, she rounded on him and tugged him close to draw their mouths together in a fevered kiss. She trembled with adrenaline and hummed with power. It was intoxicating. Jaskier could do nothing but lean into the embrace, kissing her back just as desperately.

“Ah,” he said as she pulled away from him, hands fisted in his collar.

“Knew that would shut you up,” said Yennefer.

“Mmph,” he said. It had.

“We’re going to slay a dragon,” she said against his lips. That sounded unwise and slightly unhinged, but something about her stubborn fire made him think _yeah, yeah, ok ready when you are_.

“Do we have time for this?” grunted Geralt as he trotted up behind them.

“No,” said Yennefer and kissed Jaskier again anyway.

The rumble of a great beast from deep within the cave at last broke them apart.

* * *

The golden dragon that raised its wings high in the musty cavern spoke with a familiar, nasally voice.

“Oh,” breathed Jaskier. “Got fucked by a dragon.”

“ _That’s_ the detail you’re choosing to focus on here?” Yennefer groaned. Her fierce intent wobbled around the edges, her grip slackening on the dagger in her hand.

“Oi, I’m a simple man. Who apparently got absolutely plowed by a dragon the other day.”

“We really don’t need the gory details, Jask,” said Geralt. “Or any details. Stop talking.”

“Not at all what I pictured a dragon to be like though. No offense.”

“None taken,” rumbled the dragon with a noise that Jaskier could only interpret as laughter. Téa and Véa stood flanking the massive egg curled in the deceased green dragon’s claws.

“Hi girls,” said Jaskier with a little wave. Véa shook her head with a huff of breath, and Téa waved back. “Apparently I’m just hanging around the wrong extremely powerful entity of legend, eh, Geralt? Not all near immortals faff about playing Gwent and sulking all day! Huh!”

Geralt crossed his arms and promptly assumed his most determined sulky expression. Then seemed to remember that there were more pressing matters at hand here and uncrossed his arms again.

“The egg,” he said as raised voices outside the cave alerted them to the approaching Reavers, “we can’t let the others reach it.”

* * *

The skirmish at the mouth of the cave ended in a dozen dead Reavers and bloodied swords all around. Jaskier, who had shrunk away into a sheltered alcove during the fight, stumbled out into the light.

The dust settled.

The dragon, the mage, and the bard sat together on a lip of stone on the edge of the mountainside. There was the rhythmic sound of Geralt cleaning his swords not far away and the whistle of the wind over the distant valley.

Yennefer sat with her knees pressed against his, her hands folded in her lap. Jaskier wanted to reach out and slip an arm around her shoulders but resisted doing so. If she was feeling as vulnerable as she looked, she would not tolerate the public affection.

He knew when Three Jackdaws spoke of _the child_ in a rumbling, paternalistic tone that Yennefer thought grimly of her own barrenness. There would be no dragon hearts this time. No easy solution to be found here.

“I owe you great thanks, Yennefer of Vengerberg,” said Three Jackdaws. “I can see why young Jaskier here is so devoted to giving you what you desire.”

The dragon’s sharp eyes glittered.

Jaskier felt something sink in his gut, knowing then what would happen before it did.

“What does that mean?” asked Yennefer.

She turned to look at him, her brow knitted.

He had glimpsed this moment the night before. The dragon, the mountainside, her wind-tangled hair.

“In Rinde,” said Jaskier, though his throat threatened to close up around the oft-practiced words, “I made a wish.”

He knew the moment that the truth sank in.

Something terrible and furious rose in her eyes, her mouth tightening to a thin line.

“That’s what this is,” she said. “That’s what this feeling is. You made a fucking wish. It’s magic. It’s not real. None of it.”

“No,” said Jaskier. His vision tunneled. He felt as though he were looking at her from a long way away, limbs heavy and thoughts sluggish. “That’s not true. It’s real.”

“How can I possibly trust that?” She leapt to her feet, fists clenched. Jaskier could feel the crackle of her power in the air between them, the smell of ozone and lilacs.

“Yen--”

“How can I possibly trust _you_?”

“I meant to tell you,” he said. “I was going to tell you, I just--”

“ _When_ were you going to tell me exactly? After a decade or two? After you had me just where you wanted me?”

He had no answer to that. He should have told her sooner. He should have-- _  
_

It didn’t matter now.

How beautiful she was in all her rage. How very much he loved her.

It didn’t matter now.

“I’m going to save you both a lot of hurt with a little pain now,” said the dragon between them.

It did not feel like a little pain.

It felt cavernous and wretched and agonizing. The look of hurt and fury in Yennefer’s eyes. The tense line of her shoulders.

“The sorceress will never regain her womb,” said Three Jackdaws. “And Jaskier, though you wished for her to get what she wanted, I’m afraid that she may not yet know what that is.”

Yennefer winced and ducked her head, tears streaking down her cheeks.

“Yennefer, I--” He reached a hand to touch her, and she jerked away, wild-eyed.

“Fuck off,” she said, voice choked with bitter tears. “Goodbye, Jaskier.”

She turned and swept away from him.

And was gone.

* * *

Three Jackdaws reached to clap Jaskier’s shoulder, a gesture less awkward than it should be given what he was.

“You have been told that I can break this bond,” said the dragon, voice humming just this side of inhuman.

“Please,” said Jaskier.

He felt the connection torn like an open wound between them, pangs of Yennefer’s grief mingling with his own.

“I can,” said Three Jackdaws, “but I will not.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he gasped. “Why the fuck not?”

The dragon who wore a man’s face smiled in a way that did not reach his eyes.

It was then that Jaskier remembered the warning.

That their connection in the hands of the wrong being could easily be used for ill.

His stomach soured with fear.

“No, do not fret, young one,” said the dragon and clapped him once more on the shoulder. There was the phantom sensation of claws digging in. “I am too old for grasps at power. And have far more important priorities now.”

“Please,” repeated Jaskier. “Undo the wish. Break the connection. I can’t--”

He could feel it. Could see her behind the blink of his eyes.

It was no little pain.

It was deafening.

“The truth is, poet,” said Three Jackdaws, “I cannot undo a wish that you are still making.”

* * *

“Jaskier,” called Geralt from up the low rise of the hill behind him.

Jaskier did not turn to him, facing the dusty valley below. He narrowed his eyes to peer into the distance, trying and failing to make out the point where the slump of the mountain range met the sea. He realized after a long beat of silence that he was crying.

Embarrassing. He swiped futilely at his cheeks.

“If we head out now, we can be down the mountain before the sun sets. Head southwest,” said Geralt. “Not too late to head to the coast.”

 _The coast,_ thought Jaskier, and a painful shudder ran through his tensed muscles.

Jaskier thought of a long ago holiday in Cidaris. The spray off the sea, the touch of sun-warmed skin, the cry of seabirds drowning out their laughter. He thought of time spent in Novigrad, of autumn picnics on the swampy dunes along the Pontar delta. The flicker of stars. Moonflowers in bloom.

“Don’t want to hear it right now maybe but--”

“Don’t you dare, Witcher.” Jaskier reeled on him, voice raised, fists clenched, feeling the heat of tears sting the corners of his eyes. “Don’t you _dare_ say I told you so. Don’t. I’ll never speak to you again, I swear it.”

“Wasn’t going to,” said Geralt. He looked strangely small standing up on the low rise, hunched forward. He squinted out at the horizon, looking like the dust from the trail was bothering his eyes. Or perhaps he too could feel the sting of his own bounds of Fate. Could Geralt reach out along a thread that stretched toward the southwest and discern the fluttering heartbeat of his Child Surprise?

“Fuck,” said Jaskier. He kicked a stray pebble from the ledge, watched it tumble into the valley below. Kicked another and scuffed the toe of his boot and swore before he remembered that the red leather was illusory anyway. All of it. An illusion. Smoke and mirrors. “ _Fuck._ ”

“Though I did tell you about a dozen times that--”

“ _Ger_ -alt.”

“Sorry,” said Geralt, “shit time for a joke.”

Jaskier wanted to shout until his voice gave out, howl into the buffeting wind on the mountain slope, but something about the Witcher’s small voice and the whole stupid mess of a situation struck a chord of humor. He leaned forward, palms on his knees to wheeze out a laugh.

“Fuck, my friend, we sure are a pair of morons, aren’t we? Two imbeciles on a mountain, eh?”

“Speak for yourself.”

“I’m an idiot, Geralt,” said Jaskier, desperate, voice squeaking. “I’m an _idiot_.”

“You can say that again,” said the Witcher but strode down the hill to him, tentatively resting a hand on his quivering shoulder. Jaskier did not say it again, just clasped Geralt’s elbow, futilely trying to keep the offer of comfort from worsening his tears.

“An idiot on idiot mountain,” said Jaskier, voice wobbling.

Geralt frowned and patted his arm.

A fresh lurch of pain sang across the bond that tied him to Yennefer. He allowed it to wash over him anew.

He welcomed it.

It was no less than he deserved, after all.

* * *

In the end, he did write a song inspired by their misadventure on the way down the mountainside. Something melancholic and suitably tragic.

Geralt shot worried frowns at him from time to time as he composed.

 _You fool_ , thought Jaskier.

He could still feel her lips against his, a memory that thrummed with painful clarity across their bond.

It had ruined him for anything but this agony, this regret, this grief.

It carved a new swathe of destruction within him each time that he remembered.

* * *

Together, the Witcher and the poet headed for the coast.


	8. part six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** for potential spoilers for the books, specifically Blood of Elves, as we have reached that part of the story but the events are highly modified. nothing sexy worth warning about even happens in this chapter, can you believe? there's emotions though. like ten dozen emotions, be warned for that. also terrible names for horse OCs, excessive ugly crying, and be warned especially for this....... c*ddling

26

Yennefer fled.

The path climbed the ridgeline before it swept down again, putting a burn in her calves and a hitch in her lungs.

She paused on the trail to look up and back down. Nothing looked familiar, only more grit and dust and stone. Down in the valley, a river rushed in a churn of whitewater, but from this distance, there was no noise at all, no movement.

Had their company passed this river on the way up? She cast her thoughts back to the upward climb but gleaned no details of use. The path had been heavy with fog. Perhaps there had been a river, hidden in the mists. The day’s heat had burned off the shroud of moisture, and now she saw it clearly, wound through the brown valley like a ribbon unspooled.

Such a memory did not help her. The river had existed all the same, even caught in deep fog, but now she had no landmarks to find her way down the mountain. It did not help her.

Something throbbed in her chest and stretched away from her, a thread that connected to the man she hoped was not dumb enough to be fumbling after her. The feeling was peculiar and oh so obvious once she turned to look at it. This was the sort of magic that bound and contorted and unfurled ripples of fate around itself.

In her blind fury just past the first ridgeline, she had turned and struck out with chaos to try to sever it. Instead of breaking, a swell of pain had risen over her. Not her own. A grief so tangible it left a sour taste in her mouth and brought hot tears to her cheeks.

Foolish, _foolish_.

She had crouched by the path, hands fisted in the dirt and wailed and sobbed until the intensity of the feeling left her, and she was able to continue on.

The poet felt things too strongly, too fiercely, far too much. There was sorrow and regret, stinging and acrid, and there was something else, something too bright to look at, a white-hot supernova of a feeling that Yennefer knew would scald if she reached to touch it.

She did not reach to touch it. She grit her teeth and allowed the wave of emotion that was not hers to pass through her. It did not fade entirely, an echo remaining behind her ribcage.

Or perhaps those were her own feelings. The spark of pain, the well of grief.

The warmed center of the feeling was a bright planetary body flickering with released energy. She pressed at the ache and a wave rose from it like the wisp of a solar flare. She had felt the same ache for years, recognizing it for the first time at the banquet in Cidaris and feeling it deepen and intensify.

It was a familiar thing by now, the love she felt for him.

But what proof did she have that the feeling was not simple refraction? A bending and warping of his own emotion as it passed through their bond and into her?

None.

The poet had made a wish.

Nothing more.

A bird of prey soared overhead, silent. The river may have been there the day before, choked in fog. Yennefer didn’t know where she was fucking going.

She swore and drew down a portal, plucking the swirl of chaos from the fabric of the world and thought _I need a fucking drink._

Expecting to step into the rustic front room of The Pensive Dragon, she was surprised to find herself standing in a grimey alley on the streets of Cidaris. A faded sign adorned with a clam creaked on a post above the door.

* * *

Tiff took one look at her and strained to reach a dusty demijohn stowed on a top shelf above the bar. Yennefer didn’t want to know what she looked like, wind-blown and dust-covered and tear-streaked.

Her mouth twisted as she fumbled for the glass that the bartender poured her. She half-choked on the burn of it.

“There, there,” said the woman who leaned on her elbows on the bar. “Easy, love, that shit ain’t cheap.”

“Deal with it,” said Yennefer, and she didn’t like the way her voice sounded. Rough, as though she had been howling into the wind. She had been.

“Ya break his little heart?” asked Tiff, pouring her a fresh splash of spirits, and Yennefer snorted.

“I hope so,” she said. “I fucking hope--”

To her appalled horror, a rush of sorrow choked her again, and tears sprang free. Gratefully, the tavern was empty, but even with no witnesses but Tiff to her weakness, Yennefer burned with shame. She had not cried so openly since childhood, a feeble girl trapped by circumstance.

The bleed of their connection was to blame, she thought.

The tears were his.

He had done this to her.

* * *

She fled south.

The dust from the dig in Nazair clung to her clothes long after she had portalled away, following Vilgefortz to Aretuza.

The bitter taste of Nilfgaardian ale remained.

The warmth of Istredd’s hands did not.

Aretuza loomed cold and barren above a white-capped sea, and Yennefer allowed herself to be sucked back into its black depths.

If she chose the chains, she was not bound.

She wondered if the Witcher had made it to Cintra to collect his child before it crumbled to ash. She wondered if he had gone alone.

A song found her, a haunting melody that told of a kiss so sweet it could destroy. She avoided taverns after that.

She could not escape the thrum of the wish.

She resisted the pull of it.

Bitterly.

With a pang of heartache that she could not know was hers.

* * *

“It’s time to accept that life has no more to give,” she said on what could be her very last evening. The firelight caught in Tissaia’s eyes, and their feeble company chattered and hummed around them. Yennefer knew that most of the men, women, and children gathered here would die.

Her mentor’s expression was a foreign one, something forlorn in her open gaze.

Yennefer had not told anyone here about the poet and had not let herself think of him, had done her best to close herself off. But she could die tomorrow or worse.

Her resolve slipped.

Their last night together, Yennefer had pressed for a moment into the bard’s head. She had not wholly meant to, the intimacy of their shared embrace blurring her mind into his. He dreamed of a sun-warmed house in a village somewhere, a teeming garden, a shared life. She saw herself, body round with pregnancy, a dark-haired child toddering beside her. A red sun lowering to touch the edge of the horizon.

 _I want anything that you want_ , he had thought with a clear and honest weight, and she had broken from his dream shaken and overwhelmed by the love that she felt there.

But it had not been honest. A falsehood. If he truly cared for her, he would not have concealed such a terrible secret from her for so long.

It did not matter what he wanted.

Yennefer wanted to forget.

“You still have so much left to give,” said Tissaia.

But she was wrong.

The only legacy remaining to her was the blood she would spill tomorrow. If she was lucky, some other poet would write her last contribution into the annals of history. Her legacy would sit as a single line in a dry tome shelved to gather dust.

She wondered what would happen to their connection when she died.

She hoped it would snuff out like a sputtering candle and go quiet.

She hoped that he would feel it for long after, the ways he had wronged her.

She hoped that he would forget quickly, that she would fade, that he would write no more songs of her. Let some other poet tie up the loose ends of her story. Let some other poet mourn her.

* * *

Smoke and dust.

The field obscured in a haze, and her mind lost in it.

She sent probing fingers of magic along the barren ground. Found rippling scars carved by artillery. Found contorted limbs. Found strained gasping in a broken chest and stayed there, soothing, until it quieted.

Fringilla’s voice echoed as a ghostly temptation in her ear, offering _limitless power, no more bounds, a legacy untethered._

Yennefer tightened her resolve and turned aside.

_Is anyone out there?_

Yennefer felt the aching hunch of her shoulders. The twist of her spine. She stumbled forward through the dust and smoke.

_Is anyone still alive?_

Here was her legacy.

A choice.

_Let your chaos explode._

An inferno.

A black scar of earth.

For a moment, before the dark swallowed her, she glimpsed an imprint of the poet’s silhouette limned in starlight.

* * *

She survived the fire.

At first, she thought herself dead, blind and cast in darkness, but soon, her vision crept back around the edges. Chaos roiled just under her skin. A feverish agony took her.

For weeks, she burned, restrained in one of Aretuza’s little-used towers so that the apprentices could not hear her screaming. A healer mopped cool rags against her burning forehead or sometimes Tissaia did, fingers running through her greasy hair.

Awareness crashed over her all at once one morning, the fever draining away.

Her weak limbs trembled, but she forced them to bend to shove herself up in the narrow bed. Tissaia’s thin fingers curled around her elbow, stopping her.

“Nilfgaard?” Yennefer asked, voice cracking with disuse.

“Pushed back,” said Tissaia. “Perhaps waiting to attempt a different strategy but pushed back for now.”

“The others?”

“Thirteen of our own died on Sodden Hill,” she said. “When you are well again, I will take you there. There is a memorial.”

“How long has it been?”

“Only a month,” said Tissaia. Her fingers traced absent patterns on Yennefer’s arm. Such intimacy from her mentor felt bizarre, difficult to accept, but Yennefer supposed this closeness was a simple side effect of nearly dying in battle together. Such shared experiences changed things.

“You let me sleep in,” said Yennefer with the hint of a wry laugh, though she didn’t feel much like laughing. “How unlike you.”

“Don’t get used to it,” said Tissaia, the prim jut of her chin betrayed by the amused smile that slipped onto her face. “By the way, you did a healthy bit of moaning in your sleep. Some fellow named Jaskier sounds like a very lucky man.”

Yennefer groaned.

“Fuck.”

“Fuck sounds about right,” said Tissaia with a wrinkle of her upturned nose, and Yennefer really did laugh then, a clear and surprised bark of laughter.

“If someone had told me half a century ago that I would live to hear you say something like that, oh I would have… well, I don’t know what I would have done. Simply not believed them,” said Yennefer.

“I would not have believed we could live through times like this at all.” Tissaia’s hand tightened on her arm. “We would not have. Without you.”

Yennefer waved away the sentiment, unused to the way the praise from her mentor tangled warm in her belly. She had spent so many long years discreetly longing for Tissaia’s approval. Now that she had it, she wished she had not gotten it in such a way.

The thirteen mages memorialized at Sodden Hill would not praise her. Neither would the others who had helped them defend the pass, the women and children who had no memorial.

“Who is he?” asked Tissaia, a softness touching her voice. “You called out to him often. His was the only name you spoke.”

“No one,” said Yennefer bitterly. “He is nothing to me anymore.”

 _I nearly gave him everything,_ she thought.

And closed down her mind to such things and did not think on it any longer.

27

Yennefer leaned on the sill of her tower window, peering at the tumultuous crash of the waves against the rocks below and creasing the letters clenched in her hands. Her sight had still not returned to her in full, and she squinted over some of the words.

She had been surprised this morning by the arrival of not one but two letters, one through the usual post and the other delivered by a ragged-looking raven.

The first was a brief note, written on a scrap of aged parchment. It said very little, anticipating interception.

> _Yennefer,_
> 
> _Fate’s unexpected gift has proven to be a source of great headache. Volatile. Unsure how to proceed. Please come. Bird will know the way. - Geralt_
> 
> _P.S. - Bard not here. No one has heard from him. Have you?_

Said bird squawked from its perch on her writing desk, fiddling with her discarded quill.

The other letter was no less brief but far stranger. Not for its content so much as for what it did not contain.

 _Dear friend,_ the letter began in a swirl of elegant script.

It went on to describe the unseasonably warm weather in Redania, details about a number of fancy soirees that the scribe had attended recently, and an account of the appalling color and texture of his most recent paramour’s bed linens.

It ended with a trite hope that the letter would find her healthy and well.

 _Regards_ , it was signed, _Jaskier_.

She had never read such a formulaic and bland letter.

Yennefer pulled out the chair at her writing desk with a groan of the legs against the stone floor and snatched her quill from the beak of the Witcher’s raven. She flattened a piece of parchment, wet the quill, and launched into writing with impassioned strokes.

> _Dear friend,_
> 
> _Your unexpected letter -- which I received not quite two years after our last well-deserved parting -- has given me much joy. My joy is all the greater as I had received word from a fellow acquaintance that you had gone missing. It is a great relief to hear that you have simply been too engrossed with social events and private romances to send word of your well-being to your closest companion. These days such a life of revelry and merry-making is a real privilege, dear friend, and I am happy that you have managed to achieve it in the midst of such calamity elsewhere._
> 
> _I was touched by the sudden and absolutely genuine concern which you deigned to show as to my health, dear friend. I hasten with the news that, yes, I now feel well; the period of indisposition is behind me! I have dealt with the difficulties, the description of which I shall not bore you with._
> 
> _Perhaps it is understandable that it slipped your mind to mention your whereabouts to our mutual acquaintance given how otherwise engaged you have been. Meanwhile, he has sought my assistance on a pressing matter, and I intend to hurry on to meet him at once in the hope of ascertaining the trouble. Such valuable friendship in these volatile times, after all, is as important to me as it appears to be to you, dear friend._
> 
> _Should you, in the next few years, wish to write to me about other such important matters, do not hesitate for a moment. You know that we share a unique and abiding bond. The trivialities of your very exciting life may prove an endless source of comfort in contrast to the wretchedly boring occasion I have been enduring of late._
> 
> _Your friend, Yennefer_

Yennefer finished writing with one last flourish, nearly tearing the parchment with the heaviness of her strokes, and she allowed the quill to clatter to the desk with a suddenness that startled an offended squawk from the raven.

“Don’t judge me,” she said to the bird. “It’s no less than he deserves.”

While she allowed the ink to dry, Yennefer kicked back in her chair to reread the mysterious letter, as though yet another scan of the inane note would allow it to make any greater sense.

It was not as though she had much else to do. Despite the heavy sarcasm throughout her hastily-scribbled response, the recent weeks of her recovery really had been a bore.

It had taken her a full week simply to rebuild the strength needed to get out of bed and cross the room and another week to manage the tower’s spiraling staircase.

Luckily, her deposed state kept her from having to attend any sort of meetings or engage with many other mages at all. She did not care to know the intricacies of the political affairs of the Continent that she had so graciously saved. She had earned herself a touch of ignorance. Let Vilgefortz deal with the rabble.

Unfortunately, such avoidance meant that she spent most of her time cloistered in her tower alone, occupying herself with regaining strength and reading through Tissaia’s library of horribly and disastrously dull magickal treatises. Most of which turned out to be authored by the very same.

The essay that Tissaia had written on djinn magic proved to say no more than Yennefer already knew. The results of a djinn wish were volatile and unpredictable. Each wish seemed to bear its own rules and circumstances, some djinns their own trademarks, but no one case shared close resemblance with the next.

No wonder she had not considered the djinn as an explanation for their bond. There was not a single description in the literature that matched their connection.

And unfortunately, very little studied on the means of breaking such a thing.

“Why send me this letter?” she asked the Witcher’s raven. “It’s entirely stupid. Which is to be expected given the imbecile of a man who wrote it, but I didnt think he was quite _this_ stupid. Thought I made it clear just how unwelcome his further presence in my life was.”

The bird trilled, returning to biting at the end of her quill, and she had to shoo him away from the damp parchment.

A thought struck her suddenly. She sat up straight.

“Do you think it’s in code?” The raven tipped its head and blinked at her. “Could there be an additional meaning?

Yennefer read the note back again.

As seemingly pointless as the letter seemed, the details random and trivial, she may be onto something.

It included a generalized location and several mentions of specific events held over the past few months, giving a distinct trail to follow. The description of his paramour’s bed sheets were distinct enough to bring to the local merchant of such wares and possibly receive the name of the very estate where he was staying.

Or being kept.

“But why me?” she asked the raven, and the bird chortled, yawning. “Why send this to me?”

Yennefer crumpled the sardonic letter on her writing desk and discarded it in the nearby wastebasket. She pressed out a fresh sheet of parchment to draft a response to the Witcher.

> _Geralt,_
> 
> _I believe you are correct in your hunch about the source of your trouble. Additionally, I have located your idiot. Will be retrieving him and heading your way. You’re welcome. Stay safe._
> 
> _Your friend,  
>  Yennefer_

She could not resist at least one small jab at the bard, though the Witcher would not know its meaning.

And anyway, the world was different now. She had written it in jest in her discarded letter, but these days, any trustworthy friend was one worth appreciating.

Rifling through the bookshelves, she managed to wiggle free an atlas and lay out a map of Redania. She traced the bard’s presumed route with a fingernail and found nowhere of note. No obvious danger.

She did know one other way of determining if the bard was in trouble.

With a drawn-out sigh, she relaxed the wards she had placed to dull the most intense of the bond’s refracting emotions.

Distress fissured through the connection, raw and frazzled.

“I hate being right,” said Yennefer to the Witcher’s raven.

She drew the knowledge of the route to Kaer Morhen from the bird’s surprisingly shrewd thoughts, sent it flapping off from the window with the letter to Geralt, and resigned herself to preparing for a reluctant rescue mission.

* * *

On their evening stroll through one of Aretuza’s herb gardens, Yennefer announced her plan to leave.

Early in her recovery, she had been forced to cling to Tissaia’s arm on their strolls, struggling to walk the length of the vibrant garden, but now, she strode easily beside her, hands shoved in the pockets of her black and white dress.

Despite winter fast approaching, the garden bloomed and fruited and spilled with lush growth.

“I thought this man meant nothing to you,” said Tissaia.

“He does,” Yennefer insisted. “I’m simply doing a friend a favor.”

“Are you well enough to go?”

“Do I look unwell?” Yennefer asked, straightening up.

She knew that, in some ways, she still did. She was gaunt around the edges and trembled sometimes when walking too far. Aretuza had too many staircases. Her grasp on chaos had seemingly returned to normal, though she had not attempted anything too strenuous. Magic was naturally easier to accomplish behind Aretuza’s walls.

Tissaia pursed her lips.

“You think he is truly in danger?” she asked. “How can you be certain?”

Yennefer hadn’t told her of the djinn wish, mainly for the shame that, in retrospect, such a thing should have been obvious. Though the means of connection seemed to be unique to the two of them, she should have known to look out for strange happenings in the wake of a run-in with a djinn.

But she hadn’t considered it. She had allowed herself to be fooled by Jaskier for years, none the wiser.

Though it would sting her pride to tell her, Yennefer knew that Tissaia had proven that she could be trusted. The more friends she had in this the better.

“Several years ago, I was involved with an... incident with a djinn,” said Yennefer. “In Rinde.”

“Yennefer,” said her mentor sternly, “did you attempt what I believe you attempted?”

“The ritual failed anyway. I wasn’t able to contain it.”

“That is no matt--”

Yennefer held up a hand and was surprised to find Tissaia obey her bid for silence. The time for lectures was long past. She felt nearly as distant from that woman who had attempted to bind a djinn as from the crooked girl fresh in her magic.

“This man I am searching for was the djinn’s master,” said Yennefer. “He made a wish.”

“As is typical with djinn incidents.”

“It bound us together. Still binds us. We are able to feel imprints of the other. Images. Glimpses. Intense emotions. Things yet to come, sometimes. The connection has intensified over time.”

“Less typical,” said Tissaia, “and dangerous.”

“I know,” said Yennefer. “I’m working on it.”

“Such a bond is easily manipulated.”

“I know.”

“If an entity of sufficient power were to become aware of this bond and have use for it--”

“I _know_. I’ve studied what I can here. I require a more extensive library if I hope to undo the wish.”

“There is no more extensive library on the Continent,” said Tissaia.

“I’m going to Kaer Morhen.”

The Witchers’ keep was younger than Aretuza, but unconstrained by politics, it was rumored to keep a truly remarkable trove of information in its library. Some rumors said the lot was destroyed during its sacking but others disputed said rumor. It was worth exploring, at the very least.

Yennefer stopped before a hedge of lavender in full bloom, the swaying blossoms humming with pollinating insects, and turned to face Tissaia.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely, reaching to clasp her hand. “For taking care of me these past weeks.”

Tissaia shook her head, interlocking their fingers.

“You did most of it yourself,” she said. “You’re certainly strong enough to--”

“Didn’t have to.”

They exchanged a look, that same forlorn and quiet stare they had shared that night by the fire in Sodden.

_You still have so much left to give._

Some part of Yennefer wished that she could stop giving, could stop wanting. If anything, it all just deepened and intensified instead of diminishing.

The woman who had tried to bind a djinn in that manor house would have left the poet who betrayed her to his fate. Turned aside from the Witcher who called on her for aid.

The woman who she was now could not do so.

“Be safe,” said Tissaia, and she squeezed Yennefer’s hand one last time before they parted ways.

28

Yennefer wore men’s clothing for her endeavor, dark and non-descript. It was not wise these days for a mage to draw too much attention to herself in public, especially not knowing exactly what she was up against.

Especially while creeping in the dark through the streets of a private estate.

Espionage was not her strong suit, but she knew enough little spells for eavesdropping and quieting her footfalls to be of use. She waved a hand to convince a guard or two that the rats must be particularly active tonight, wondering if this was what the Witcher must feel like.

Very much like a rodent.

It was horrid.

Where was the spectacle?

A month lounging in bed after finally tapping into her true power had made her antsy to reach for it again.

Yennefer would much rather be blasting open doors and funnelling towers of ash and fire and lashing the little estate with forks of lightning, but that seemed, on the whole, a bit overdramatic and premature.

Yennefer knew the bard was here. She had learned some curious things in several nearby villages, asking after the whereabouts of one foppish bastard while playing at being a wronged spouse.

This estate had stood empty until only a few weeks before, but none knew well enough to say who it was that occupied it. But every guard and maid and cook and servant what lived up in that estate, they said, was a woman.

She found him easily enough through the pull of their bond. A light glowed in a second story window of the estate’s main building, and the melancholy sound of a lute being strummed drifted on the cool night air. Below the window, a twisted hops vine climbed the lattice of a white trellis, allowing for a clear method of entry.

She slunk below the window, gripping the trellis to test its strength.

A petty, wounded part of her thought of making an appearance just long enough for her to be seen and then slink back into the dark.

 _Now you know some of what I have always endured,_ she imagined saying. _When did you last feel happy when you felt trapped?_

She had spent too much of her life hemmed in and caged. The poet was just another in a long line of attempted captors. She had no forgiveness to offer him. She should leave him here to rot.

The lute music had quieted.

“Pssst,” whispered a voice from the window above, “are you going to rescue me or just stand there looking longingly up at my window?”

In the dark, she could just see Jaskier’s shaggy head poked over the windowsill, peering down at her.

“Quiet,” she whispered. She hadn’t gone to all this trouble simply to be apprehended because the idiot couldn’t shut up. “I’m coming up.”

“Oooh, this is very romantic,” whispered Jaskier.

Yennefer resisted the urge to gesture obscenely in his direction. Or better yet, turn tail and head back the way she came.

The slats of the trellis were a perfect fit for her boots, and the structure seemed sturdy enough. She began the climb, teeth gritted to ignore the idiots chatter. She was glad to have worn trousers and a nice pair of leather gloves as the leaves of the hops scratched against her clothing.

Halfway up, her fatigued muscles reminded her that she had been bedridden not so long ago, and as she struggled up the last few feet, Jaskier leaned out to grasp her arms and shoulders. He tugged hard as she gave one last push with her legs, promptly overbalancing, and the two of them tumbled together onto the floor of the room.

Sprawled beneath her, his body pinned by her weight, Jaskier offered a tentative smile.

“Hi,” he breathed. “You read my letter. I was very clever, wasn’t I? You knew just where to find me.”

“Unfortunately,” said Yennefer. She allowed her trembling muscles a moment to rest, breath slowing back to normal.

“You’re very pretty,” he said with a dazed smile. His breath smelled of old grapes, and his eyes struggled not to cross.

“You’re fucking drunk.”

The room was decadently furnished, flickering with firelight from a sizable hearth. The bed was vast and plush-looking and swathed in the sheets that Jaskier had described in his letter. His lute rested against the pillows, and a bottle of wine sat open on the bedside table beside a wedge of cheese.

“You have a fairly noble-looking jail cell,” said Yennefer.

“I _am_ fairly noble,” huffed Jaskier. He squirmed beneath her, and she realized belatedly the compromising nature of their position. He had taken on the vaguely constipated expression he adopted when attempting to look coyly seductive. He gazed up at her through lowered lashes.

“No,” she said. “We are not doing this.”

“Whatever do you mean, Yennefer?” he asked in a low voice, his breath stirring her hair. Her dark curls had fallen loose from their tie in the tumble through the window, and it fell across her shoulder to cast one side of his face in darkness. His own hair had grown longer and swept messily across his forehead. His lips were half-parted, the tinge of a drunken blush coloring his nose and cheeks.

It was strange to look at him again after so long. Her memory had not quite preserved the details as exactly as she saw them now. Had he always had a freckle just at the corner of his left eye? Had she ever noticed the fullness of his lips, the sharp hollow of his cheekbones?

She pushed herself away from him and to her feet.

“Let’s go,” Yennefer said as she made to create a portal and spirit them away.

“Wait, wait,” said Jaskier, “I haven’t finished my wine. It’s a very good vintage.”

Ah, so the idiot had somehow acquired even more brain rot in the past year and a half.

“I didn’t break into an estate to sample your captor’s wine.”

“Which was very heroic of you, but see, I haven’t been _captured_ so much as I--”

The turn of a key in the lock outside the door interrupted him.

 _Shit_.

She hurried to reach for her magic and tug at the necessary threads needed to create a portal, but Jaskier leapt up from the floor to grab at her, aborting the gesture. Her interrupted grasp at chaos swept a blast of wind through the room, scattering parchment and extinguishing the fire.

“ _Jaskier_ ,” she hissed, “are you even more touched in the head than usual?”

The door burst open.

A buxom blonde woman in a night dress stood in the open doorway, holding a flickering candle that promptly blew out. She blinked at the curls of smoke that rose from the wick and then at Yennefer tensed into a defensive position in front of Jaskier.

Perplexingly, her round face stretched with a cheery grin.

“Yennefer of Vengerberg!” called the woman as she strode forward into the room. “I have heard so many wonderful things about you.”

Yennefer’s eyes narrowed. What the fuck was this?

“Who are you?”

“You may call me the Countess,” said the buxom woman. “Everyone does.”

“The Countess de Stael,” Yennefer said with a beat of recognition and relaxed her posture. “You’re not holding him hostage.”

“Oh, I certainly am,” said the Countess. “My little darling has it in his head that he’s going to run off and enact some elaborate rescue mission for his Witcher. Much too dangerous, I say. He’s safer here with me.”

“Rescue mission?” asked Yennefer.

“From Cintra, of course. He and the Witcher split barely an eve before the city fell, Melitele preserve their poor souls. That Witcher is a strapping man, but he surely had no hope of escaping the city with the child in time.”

“He did escape,” she said. “He and the child are safe.”

“Oh my,” said the Countess, pressing a hand to her chest as tears welled in her eyes, “what wonderful news. I have been frightfully worried.”

“You’ve been keeping him here?”

“Very comfortably,” the Countess said.

“I see that.”

“He’s been ever so depressed of late though. Huffing and sighing and writing sad melodies.”

“Captivity tends to have that result.”

“Ah, but it has done wonders for our sex life. As it turns out, he finds hostage situations quite enthralling.”

Yennefer turned to the bard who still stood awkwardly behind her.

Jaskier had enough sense left to look sheepish.

“Er,” he said, shifting on his feet, “so maybe I played up the damsel in distress thing. A bit.”

“Jaskier,” said Yennefer dangerously, “did I travel across half the Continent, engage in espionage, sneak onto a private estate, and climb in through your bedroom window all to… augment your pitiful sex life?”

He suddenly looked fairly distressed indeed.

29

In her great and boundless mercy, Yennefer allowed the poet to live.

And retain full possession of his manhood, though that one was a close thing.

Unfortunately, she had already sent the Witcher’s raven off with the promise of bringing the idiot to Kaer Morhen, so she could not maim, dismember, or otherwise enact bodily harm upon him as freely as she wished to.

Geralt would be grumpy about such a thing.

She could, however, level him with her best withering glare at every available opportunity, which seemed to induce a similarly painful effect.

After sobering up, assisted in this with a muttered spell, Jaskier had become decidedly more strained and glum.

“Oh, Yennefer, he has been full of melancholy and restlessness lately. And drinks too much, I fear,” said the Countess, cooing over the somber bard. They had retreated to a stately sitting room, a pair of young maids lighting the lanterns for them and offering up refreshments despite the late hour. Yennefer accepted a glass of red wine and settled into an armchair. The Countess sprawled on a chaise, cradling a bowl of candied cherries and occasionally reaching to pop one into Jaskier’s mouth. “Perhaps your presence here will cheer him up.”

Jaskier grimaced.

“You haven’t told her,” said Yennefer carefully, “about what happened between us.”

“I… may have… smoothed over some details,” he said. He fiddled with his hands in his lap, the tinge of a blush on his cheeks.

“Ooh,” cooed the Countess, licking sugar off her fingers, “what did he do? Something exquisitely foolish?”

“Does he know any alternatives?” asked Yennefer.

“No, not that I am aware.”

“This is exactly why I prayed daily that you two would never meet,” Jaskier groaned, slumping back into his armchair.

“You? Praying?”

“Oh dear, pity the poor goddess with you as a devotee.”

“I’d have sent down a bolt of lightning ages ago. Though quite frankly, I’m still considering it myself.”

“Not in the sitting room, darling. I’m simply borrowing this estate, and char marks would be quite the headache to explain to its lord.”

“This is a nightmare,” said Jaskier, burying his face in his hands.

“I should hope so,” said Yennefer darkly, examining her fingernails. She had chipped a nail climbing that blasted trellis.

“I am having a very horrible dream and would like to wake up now.”

“What is it that you did, Jaskier? Far worse than exquisitely foolish, I should say.”

“Mmm, he conveniently neglected to tell me -- for a good five years -- that it was a wish he made that bound us to one another. Our arrangement was based on false pretense. Bolstered by magic.”

The Countess’ mouth rounded into an ‘o’.

She promptly began to cuff the bard about the head and shoulders with a nearby decorative pillow.

“You truly exquisite fool! You never _told_ her.”

“Oi! Oi!”

“ _Idiot_. Dunce. Moronic little twat.”

“Yes, yes, we’ve established my complete lack of judgment by now, thank you very much,” whined Jaskier. “Trust me, I promise any insult you have for my intelligence, I’ve already thought of myself. And worse. I’ve thoroughly exhausted every synonym for ‘complete fuck-up’ that presently has been invented.”

“Are you not a famous poet? Invent some new ones,” said Yennefer.

“Tell me that he at least discovered what it was that you wanted,” said the Countess. “That’s what he wished for, you know. That you would get what you wanted.”

“I know,” said Yennefer.

“I did,” said Jaskier.

His voice was small and strained. She set her jaw and refused to meet his eyes.

The Countess glanced between them.

“Oh, you poor things,” she said as tears began to roll freely down her rounded cheeks, wobbling on her chins. “You poor, poor dears. I’ve never before heard such a tale of heartbreak.”

“But we haven’t told you anything,” said the bard.

“Ah but your haunted expressions tell the whole fraught and terrible story. What a tragedy! I’m so very sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Yennefer. “What’s done is done.”

“Yen--”

“We’ll leave for Kaer Morhen in the morning,” said Yennefer. “That is, if you would be willing to extend your hospitality one more night, Countess.”

“Of course,” said the Countess. “You are welcome to another fortnight, if you wish.”

Yennefer grimaced at the woman’s choice of words. She had had her fill of wishes.

“One night will do,” said Yennefer and followed one of the young maids to a waiting bedchamber.

She did not have to look back to know that the poet stared despondently after her. The pang of sorrow rose clearly through the hum of their connection, echoing in the tightness of her own chest.

30

The Countess offered them the pick of her personal string of horses for the journey to Kaer Morhen. Yennefer planned to portal them and their mounts into the foothills. The season was not yet so advanced that the pass would be blocked by ice and snow, making the footing an issue for even the surest of mounts. But they would have to make haste.

She selected an animal that seemed well-suited to the job, a sturdy roan gelding with a whiskered face.

“You’re certain they’re safe?” asked Jaskier, holding the reins of a black and white mare. He had taken to calling her Trout.

“Yes,” said Yennefer. “Unless something’s happened in the week since I received Geralt’s correspondence, they’ll be waiting for us in Kaer Morhen.”

“I was sure I’d lost him,” said the bard, that strange touch of sorrow returning to his voice. “I’m not sure I could survive that. Losing him as well as you.”

“Save the sob story for someone with sympathy,” she said and began to prepare a portal powerful enough to transport both themselves and the horses.

An ordinary mage may not have been able to easily accomplish such a thing, but after leaving Aretuza, she had found that chaos flowed more easily beneath her fingertips than before Sodden. She wondered what it would take to over-exert herself.

The Countess waved heartily from the front steps of the house flanked by her entourage, kissing her hands and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, and Jaskier waved back with wide sweeps of his arms.

“I’ll miss you!” he called. “Next time, consider not keeping me against my will!”

“No promises, little one!” called the Countess de Stael.

The portal leapt to life at the edge of the courtyard.

Trout balked at first at it, eyes rolling, but went through quietly enough with some soothing pats from Jaskier. Her roan gelding seemed not to notice that anything had changed, looking serenely about at the forest clearing they stepped into.

And suddenly, Yennefer was alone with the poet.

Jaskier looked as though he wanted to say something, his brow furrowed, his mouth parting.

“We have ground to cover,” she said and swung into the saddle, spurring her horse up the path that wound through the hills.

It would be at least two day’s journey from here, perhaps longer if the conditions were not favorable. She pressed ahead, not lingering for the poet to catch up.

A cold wind swept the foothills, and she knew it would only get colder.

She hoped, for a distinct lack of any desire to tolerate his whining, that Jaskier had brought something warmer than the nonsense he was wearing.

* * *

He had not.

Within an hour, he shivered in the saddle, his travel coat and silk doublet doing nothing to cut the chill wind. Yennefer did not intend to look back at him as often as she did, but his fitful trembling was distracting.

Trout pranced beneath him, unnerved by her rider’s restlessness.

And uncharacteristically, he did not complain.

“We’ve set out to travel a dangerous mountain pass on the cusp of winter, and you didn’t think to bring a warmer coat?” asked Yennefer when they stopped for a break on a rocky outcrop.

“Thought I had,” he said, rubbing at his upper arms.

“No gloves?”

“No?”

“Hat?”

“I think we covered earlier that I’m an idiot, Yennefer. It’s old news,” said Jaskier bitterly with a wag of his cold hands. “No need to rub it in.”

She considered ignoring him and continuing to do so at length. But thought better of it. He really did look miserable, hunched in the saddle as they continued on.

* * *

As the daylight waned, Yennefer chose a dry spot in a copse of evergreens to make camp, erecting her tent with a wave of her hand. Jaskier looked at the newly-erected structure and down at the bedroll he gripped in his hands.

“You didn’t bring a tent.”

Jaskier shook his head.

Yennefer looked at the ridiculous man in his turquoise silks and his too-thin but likely highly-fashionable travel coat.

She had once dressed him with a flick of her fingers.

Her fingers itched to do so now.

He stood before her with his mouth twisted and knuckles white around his bedroll. He looked pathetic. Thinner than she remembered and exhausted and trembling with cold. A mournful feeling reached her through the thread of their connection.

Regret and guilt and a hollowed sorrow.

“Good night, Jaskier,” she said and allowed the flap of the tent to close behind her.

* * *

She dreamed of a coastline, sunlight flickering on the backs of waves that rolled in an even thunder against the shore. Her hair dripped with sea water, and the wet sand rubbed her fingertips raw as she clawed through it, digging, her chest aching.

Collapsed on her knees, she dug a hollow in the damp beach, but her fingers dragged, her arms heavy. The waves came up to froth around her ankles. The salt of the water stung her eyes as it dried. She could not draw enough air into her lungs.

The tide swelled, and the shallow depression she had carved out gave to the surf. The water rose over her hands, sucking at her wrists as it retreated again.

The line of the horizon wavered like a thread on a loom, pulled taut and quivering.

She dreamed of the coast.

* * *

Yennefer woke well past midnight to the sound of rain pattering against the canvas of the tent and thought of the poet.

It displeased her to know that this was not an uncommon occurrence. Waking still half-entangled in dreams, forgetting for a moment that he no longer slept beside her. Tonight, he slept alone in the rain.

The Witcher would not be pleased if she delivered his bard with pneumonia or worse.

She padded on bare feet to part the flap and peer out into the dark. A fire hissed and sputtered in the cold rain, doused to wet cinders. She squinted until her eyes adjusted to the light and finally spotted Jaskier curled tightly around himself against the trunk of an evergreen. She knew by the intensity of his shivering that he was not sleeping.

“Jaskier,” she called across the campsite. He ignored her, further hunching his shoulders. “Jaskier, I know you’re not sleeping. I can hear your teeth chattering from here.”

He rolled flat on his back, groaning.

“ _What?_ Can’t you see I’m suffering enough? Come to gloat? Come to mock me? Invented some nice, fresh insults to call me while you lounged in your cozy, magical tent?”

“Shut up.” Yennefer pinched the bridge of her nose. “Get in here.”

“No.”

“ _Jaskier_.”

“I happen to like suffering. Suffering makes for good art. I’m a suffering artist.”

“You’ll be a dead artist by morning if you don’t get in here.”

“If I died, my work would grow tremendously in popularity. I’d be the talk of the Continent.”

“If you die here, I can spread whatever rumor I’d like about how exactly it happened.”

Jaskier considered this.

“I’ll take my chances,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest and staring resolutely up into the boughs of the tree above him. Just as he said so, the rain intensified into a downpour, the tree offering little protection from the onslaught of water.

“Jaskier,” repeated Yennefer. “Quit being stubborn.”

“Never,” said the poet.

But with a last huff, he scrambled to his feet and slipped his way through the mud to duck past her and into the tent.

“Oh, it’s warm in here.”

“No shit.”

Jaskier stood dripping water into a puddle on the floor. He looked no less pathetic than he had out in the rain.

Cursing her own weakness, Yennefer snapped her fingers.

“Oh,” said Jaskier, looking down at his thoroughly dry clothing. His previously wet hair stood somewhat on end with static.

“Can’t have you soaking the bed,” said Yennefer and moved to slip back under the covers.

“I’m-- bed?” He blinked at her.

“Get in, idiot. Before I change my mind.”

She already regretted the offer, but before she could rescind it, the bard was shucking out of his trousers and doublet and clambering into bed. The mattress dipped as he settled in beside her. The bed was large enough that she would have to stretch to touch him, but it still felt far too small.

Some part of her desperately wanted to stretch to touch him.

With a whispered word, she doused the dim light she had called to life, and the tent fell into darkness. She could only just make out the shape of his body lying beside her. The patter of rain against the canvas did not conceal the steady sound of his breathing.

Neither slept.

Something about it felt inevitable, that they would always crawl into bed together again. Something about them had always felt like that. Though now that Yennefer knew the truth of why that was, she did not feel the same exasperation she once had felt when her path crossed again and again with the ridiculous minstrel.

She felt hollowed out. Worn thin, like the slightest touch would cause some part of her to tear. She did not want to lie in stillness beside this man listening to the quiet rush of his breathing.

She wanted to stumble from the tent, mount her horse in the darkness, and ride hard through the rain as far away as she could manage. She wanted to scream, to beat at his chest, to howl and rage until the crippling tightness in her ribcage eased.

She wanted to reach across their bond and grasp the white-hot sun that was his love for her and douse it, beat it back, rail against it until it fizzled and went dark.

She wanted to reach for him.

Instead, she broke the silence.

“I hope you know that song you wrote single-handedly cured my drinking problem,” said Yennefer, bitterness dripping from the words. “Can’t walk into a tavern without encountering some two-bit minstrel belting it.”

“Glad to be of service,” he said quietly.

“Mmm, pity none of your adoring fans know the truth,” she said and could hear the odd quality of her voice. “You pin me as the villain, but that’s not quite how it went, is it?”

“Bit of an unreliable narrator,” mumbled Jaskier.

“And how is _that_ just?”

In the darkness, she heard him shift and thought he would turn to her, that he would argue. She wanted him to shout and gripe and moan at her, wanted their voices to rise in volume, wanted the thing she felt to be anger, pure and cold. He didn’t turn to her. Made no sound but a soft hitch of breath, a sniffling sigh.

She wanted to hate him. Wanted to boot him back out into the rain.

Instead, she reached for him.

He had curled himself small beside her, knees tucked up and shoulders hunched. Her hand brushed his waist and found him trembling. His undershirt felt soft and worn and the skin underneath chilled. Her touch inspired a sharp inhale that deepened into the shudder of what Yennefer realized were repressed sobs. He held himself quiet and still, his irregular breathing the only sign of his distress.

Yennefer didn’t want this.

She wanted the blaze of an inferno, the crackle of chaos beneath her skin, his fury rising to meet hers as she goaded him. She wanted vitriol, insults, words spat back and forth. She wanted to grapple with him in the dark, clawing and choking and sinking teeth in.

She didn’t want this.

She shifted close to him, an arm curling around his belly and tightening, the length of her body pressed against his back.

“Hush,” she whispered into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, her forehead pressed to the back of his head. He did not hush, fumbling to grip at her arm slung across him and whining out fresh sobs, messy and wet.

He held onto her arm with both hands, trembling, gasping, and she held on in return.

* * *

She dreamed of a mountainside and knew in the way of dreams that she was sharing it with him. A rosy glow tinted the sky, sparse clouds of mist rising from the hills. Or it could have been smoke, tendrils lifting from a great swathe of charred earth.

She dreamed of a fresh pear, not in season. She dreamed of a moonflower climbing a trellis. She dreamed of the moss fissuring between a stone floor on a darkened terrace.

Her vision doubled. She both kneeled at his feet and peered down at herself, at her own vulnerable expression. She saw him haloed in a bank of stars. She saw herself warmed by lamplight.

She opened to him, their connection humming.

She dreamed of the salt-spray of the sea and the fragrance of honeysuckle.

* * *

Yennefer woke to the sound of morning bird call and the drizzle of rain, the poet still held in her arms.

He had turned towards her in the night, both hands gripping the fabric of her sleep shirt, head tucked to her chest. He was drooling on her collarbone, jaw slack and hair mussed.

Yennefer propped her chin on his head and allowed herself to linger in the moment.

She could not know how much of the warmth that rose behind her ribs was genuine.

She wanted it to be. Maybe.

She wanted--

She jostled herself free of him and slipped from bed.

“Get up, poet,” she said, and he blinked at her in groggy confusion, his hands opening and closing. For a moment, his expression was open and fond, soft with sleep.

Then, it shuttered and hardened. He rolled away from her and rose to resume their journey.

* * *

The morning was quiet as they rode beside one another along the trail. Errant raindrops fell as the horses moved through the glistening undergrowth of the forest, the moisture touched by dawn light lending the landscape a surreal quality. The frosts had not yet been harsh enough to reach beneath the trees, pockets of twining green clinging to life.

Jaskier rode ahead of her on his black and white mare and said nothing. The quiet unnerved her as deeply as it had the night before.

She waited for him to glance back at her.

He looked steadfastly up the steepening trail, guiding Trout with shifts of his body and a lowered tone. His words did not reach her.

At this pace, Yennefer predicted they would reach their destination before sundown.

Ahead, Kaer Morhen loomed.


	9. part seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** for a return of bickering, insults, and a touch of angry hate sex against a wall. plus, masturbation and sexual fantasies, minor amounts of witcher on jaskier action, and some amount of rehashed childhood trauma. also, once again, potential spoilers for blood of elves as this chapter pulls heavily from and references events from that book, though with a much abridged spin on them.
> 
> additionally, i changed coen's hair color to blond because his name kept autocorrecting to "corn" and there's nothing you can do about his cornsilk tresses, yennskier discord. nothing.

31

The portcullis lifted with the grind of winched chains, opening to a courtyard flanked by crumbling stone buttresses. The sun had fully set in the last hour of their climb toward the fortress, but a full moon rose to light the path, hanging orange and round over the mountain peaks.

Yennefer did not hesitate in leading her roan gelding by the reins past the gate, the blunt heels of her riding boots and the hooves of the horses echoing in the courtyard. She had long heard tales of this fortress, both of its creation and its fall, but had not encountered a Witcher until one delivered her an ailing poet.

 _This whole affair may have gone quite differently_ , she thought as she approached the waiting party of Witchers that flanked the main entrance to the keep, _if I had cast my lot with him instead._

Or turned tail and fled before the Witcher could request her help and draw her in.

The headache of a man who had been inflicted on her life since then trailed behind her. Trout dragged him to grab here and there at weeds that grew tall from cracks in the stone.

She had known that their numbers were dwindling, but the entourage that greeted them in the courtyard seemed a pitiful lot. They numbered only six, the last of which stood a whole two heads shorter than the others, mimicking their widened stance with puffed out chest and folded arms.

Geralt stood out among them, washed out and sallow, but he smiled at the travelers as they drew close. He greeted Yennefer with a broad hand clasped on her shoulder and Jaskier with an enveloping embrace, his face pressed into the bard’s neck.

“Thought you fucking died,” said the Witcher gruffly.

“I could say the same to you,” said Jaskier, his hands fisted in the back of Geralt’s tunic. “When will you quit running full tilt into trouble?”

“When you quit getting me into it.”

“ _Ger_ -alt, you know as well as I do that that’s not fair. You love trouble. You do your best to get into it.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t get ornery already. Tell me how much you missed me.”

“Fuck off, bard.”

“Ooh, that much?”

One of the Witchers, dark-haired and weaselly, cleared his throat loudly and whistled, and another, ragged facial scars cutting a sneer into his mouth, cuffed him about the back of the head. The oldest Witcher huffed out a breath, and the one who wore a different medallion than the rest rolled his eyes.

The very smallest stared intently at her, blinking in wide-eyed consideration.

While the Witcher and the bard continued with their reunion, Yennefer approached the child.

She did not look much like a princess. Not any longer.

Someone had inexpertly shorn her ash-blonde hair to a length that stuck up in tufts, and her round cheeks were scuffed with dirt. Yennefer was not a good judge of children’s ages and so could not guess how old she was. At least twelve years, based on what details she remembered from the Witcher’s story of his claim at her mother’s betrothal feast.

Though the others wore no armor and no weapons, the child wore a breastplate and bracers and shinguards of boiled leather. A sheathed dagger swung on a belt about her waist.

That the keep had easy access to child-sized armor spoke of its unseemly history. Yennefer attempted to turn her thoughts away from such things.

“You’re the Lady Yennefer,” said the child with carefully enunciated speech. Clear proof of her noble upbringing.

Yennefer laughed, partly at the address and partly at the discordance of it delivered by a girl who looked like a street urchin turned child soldier.

“I know I may look a fair bit prettier than your company of late,” said Yennefer to the girl, “but I am no lady.”

“Geralt says you can help with the dreams,” said the girl. She did not miss the slight wobble in the child’s voice.

Though a lifetime had passed since her own childhood, the memory of the terrible nightmares that had struck her as she came into her magic stayed with her. She had woken more nights than not trembling and distraught on her pallet in the sow barn. Struck by terrible images and whispers of power that she could not yet grasp at, she had curled into herself and failed to will her heart rate steady.

No sleep those nights.

As dawn lightened the sky, she had stumbled up to begin her chores, haunted by the dreams that still stood out vividly in her mind, by the itching pulse of something underneath her skin.

As a girl, Yennefer had had no one to offer explanation for the harrowing visions, not until Aretuza, and even then, no one to reach for her, to comfort her, to quiet her distress.

“Yes, little one,” said Yennefer, hoping her expression seemed appropriately consoling. In her long life, she had not had much practice with such a thing. “I am here to help with the dreams.”

* * *

She knew Jaskier to be well-acquainted with most of the Witchers due to his decades spent travelling with Geralt.

Geralt rattled off introductions for Yennefer’s sake, cheeky and in good spirits.

“Vesemir’s the one who’s old as dirt,” he said, gesturing to the oldest Witcher. “The pretty boy’s Eskel.” The scarred Witcher gestured with his middle finger. “That little cock is Lambert.” The weaselly-looking one bared his teeth in a snarl. “And that’s Coen.” Coen offered a small wave. His face was scarred with pockmarks and his hair the color of corn silk, his short beard the same.

“And of course,” said Geralt, his voice taking on a softness that Yennefer could not recall hearing before, “this is Cirilla. My Child of Surprise.”

The girl lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders in the way she had no doubt been taught in court. Geralt’s hand swallowed her head and ruffled her ashen hair.

Jaskier stepped forward to fall to one knee before her. Trout took the opportunity to bite at the shoulders of his doublet.

“Hello, little Cirilla,” he said. “It’s good to finally meet you. I have been anticipating this moment for many long years.”

The girl tipped her head in appraisal of him.

“Are you a jester?” she asked, eyes glittering with mischief. “You dress like one.”

Jaskier flushed as the others roared with laughter.

“Well, I see these brutes have already rubbed off on you,” he said with a sniff. As he returned to his feet, a laughing Geralt pulled him under his arm and clapped him on the back.

Amidst the roughhousing that followed, Jaskier’s eyes met hers. His expression was distinctly unreadable.

There was no reason for the glance to inspire a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had done what she had set out to do. She had found and brought him here for the Witcher’s sake.

 _You’re welcome, poet,_ she projected into his thoughts. She had not done so in a long time, preferring to keep out of his head rather than risk being confronted by the raw and overwhelming things he felt for her.

It struck her that if she had peered inside more often, she may have discovered the secret he kept from her far earlier.

 _Thank you,_ thought Jaskier with a quiet sincerity.

With the child and the bard tucked under Geralt’s arms and the company of unfamiliar Witchers ribbing each other and braying with shared amusement, Yennefer found a discomfiting loneliness settling around her.

A little frown pulled at Jaskier’s lips.

The moment stretched and broke.

“Well,” said Yennefer, “are we going to stand out here in the cold until morning, then?”

* * *

Kaer Morhen’s great hall had no doubt once been grand and impressive, though now the arched ceilings hung heavy with cobwebs and the elaborate windows clouded with grime.

Their arrival had interrupted preparations for dinner, which Vesemir barked orders at the others to resume. Coen whisked their horses away to stable them, and Eskel leapt to stoke the fire in the hearth higher and then retreated with Lambert and Vesemir to the kitchen. Geralt began to clear off the broad, central table of empty mugs and plates from previous meals.

Yennefer grappled with her warring desires of warming herself by the roaring fire and keeping as distant from Jaskier as possible. In the end, her chilled fingers had her sidling close to the flames. She resolutely avoided looking at him, though she stood only a few paces away.

Only the girl remained with the two newcomers.

She looked speculatively between them.

“Geralt says you’re like us,” she said. “That you’re bound by Destiny.”

“He said that, did he?” asked Yennefer.

“Destiny is a fickle thing,” said the bard with a wave of his hand. “Hard to pin down. Hard to explain.”

“Destiny is bullshit,” she said. Jaskier made an offended noise. “Oh save it. She’s not a toddler, and she’s not in court anymore. She’s heard and seen worse.”

The girl looked very pleased with this development.

“Geralt doesn’t like it when I curse. Neither does Vesemir.”

“Geralt’s a cock,” said Yennefer. “And Vesemir has no right to discipline any child. Given how many children this fortress bound to suffering and slavery.”

“You mean, the ones who were made into Witchers?” asked Cirilla, a touch of awe in her voice. Yennefer regarded her close-shorn hair and her leather armor and the little dagger hanging at her side. Had they already begun to train her? Had they already started to fill her head with nonsense?

“And the ones who died horrible deaths through the Trials to become one,” she said. “The men who made Witchers twisted young boys into monsters. Boys who were brought here much like you were. At the behest of Destiny.”

“Isn’t this a little heavy for--”

“Quiet, bard. She should hear this. She needs to know this.”

“I want to hear it,” said Cirilla, standing tall. To her credit, her voice held only the faintest waver.

“You should not aspire to be a Witcher,” said Yennefer. “Besides, even if the methods were remembered, you have the wrong equipment between your legs. You would be a scullery maid before a Witcher.”

She regretted the harsh tone at once for the way the girl’s shoulders imperceptibly fell.

“Ciri,” admonished Geralt, though his disappointed stare fell on Yennefer and not the girl. “Leave them be. I’m sure Vesemir could find something for you to occupy yourself with in the kitchen.”

She ducked her head and scurried off at once, heading through the doors that must lead to the kitchens.

“She’s a bold girl,” Yennefer said. “You’ll have your hands full with her.”

“Was that really necessary?” grunted Geralt.

“She needs someone here who will speak plainly to her,” said Yennefer. “You did call me here for help, did you not?”

“Help with her episodes,” he said. “Not with lectures.”

“If your lot can train her as a Witcher, then I will train her as a woman.”

“You going to make her wear dresses? Paint her lips?”

“Of course not,” said Yennefer. “But she deserves to know how the world really is outside of the castle she was raised in. Outside of this fortress. She deserves to understand these things.”

“Oh fuck off, Yen,” Jaskier interrupted. He had stood in silence before the fire as she and Geralt bickered but turned to them now, firelight bright in his eyes. “You said it yourself. Who knows what she’s seen and heard since Cintra fell. They say it was a bloodbath that night, that Nilfgaard showed no mercy. Who knows what she saw. She’s lost her family and her birthright and is holed up in the mountains with strangers. She already knows how the world really is. She doesn’t need your sob story on top of hers.”

Yennefer’s skin prickled with heat, and she burned with fury. How _dare_ he speak to her like that? How dare he lecture her? After everything he had done. After all the grief that he had caused. After she had been so kind as to rescue him and bring him here.

But she knew that he wasn’t wrong.

She had been called here to discern the child’s trouble. Not to mother her.

Yennefer would make a horrid mother anyway, and Destiny had no intention of delivering the opportunity to her.

“Fine,” she spat. “You play at being a little Witcher family while you can. She’ll realize soon enough that it’s a lie.”

The poet’s jaw tightened.

“You know, Yennefer, maybe one day you’ll figure out that not everything’s all about you. But I won’t be holding my breath.”

Those were the last words either spoke to one another for a long while.

32

Yennefer quickly realized that life through the winter in Kaer Morhen would prove to be dreadfully boring.

No wonder Geralt spoke so highly of the place.

She took up in the highest tower the farthest distance from the others. It bore the benefits of an excellent view from its narrow windows of the sweeping valley below and copious peace and quiet.

The Witchers were occupied through the days with chores and training and whatever other business they got up to, so Yennefer saw little of them.

When she requested access to Kaer Morhen’s sprawling library, the oldest Witcher eyed her warily but led her to a gloomy, high-ceilinged room cluttered with shelves and storage chests of scrolls and tomes. The room was lit only by grimy skylights high above, casting columns of light and shadow amongst the dusty shelves.

“What makes you believe the information you so desperately seek will be found here, Lady Yennefer?” asked Vesemir, and she snorted at the courtesy.

“Nothing,” she said and no more.

She could not explain the strange sensation through her body that told her clearly _something will be uncovered here_. Perhaps a premonition, perhaps a last, errant hope.

She would undo this curse that the poet had caught her in.

She refused to think it impossible.

The old man looked at her like he wanted to pry, to ask her more about what she sought, but instead, he pursed his lips and turned away and left her to her studies.

* * *

“Ciri has bad dreams,” said Geralt, brow wrinkling. “Not always while she’s sleeping.”

“You called them episodes,” Yennefer said. They stood together on a balcony that looked out over the browned training field where the girl was busy being instructed by Lambert. She and the Witcher had taken to walking the grounds together from time to time, the only one in the keep who sought out her company. “What exactly happens?”

“She freezes. Her eyes roll back in her head. She convulses, sometimes. Speaks in a voice that isn’t her own about things she shouldn’t know about,” he said. He sounded troubled. And for good reason.

The day after her arrival, she had examined Ciri, questioning and prodding at her. The girl was initially wary of her, giving stilted answers and half-truths. Yennefer regretted the harshness of her speech at their first meeting. She avoided slipping into the girl’s thoughts.

It was clear the little Witcher girl had gone through horrible trauma. She didn’t need to peer inside her head to know that.

And she seemed not to be able to access her magic at all. Ciri seemed nothing but an ordinary girl. Or as ordinary as a girl could be after being raised a princess, orphaned, and then adopted by a gaggle of witchers.

“And how do you get them to stop? The episodes?”

“You don’t. Can’t do anything but wait them out. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, sometimes it’s hours.”

“How many times?”

“Half a dozen so far,” said Geralt. He leaned on the balcony railing, his head dropping between his shoulders, his pale hair falling to cover his face. “They’re getting worse.”

Yennefer reached to press a hand to Geralt’s arm. Down on the training field, Ciri launched into a spin and a strike that Lambert rebuked. The impact jarred through her little body.

“You’re a good man, Geralt,” she said.

“Fuck right off,” he said with a wry smile.

“She would be dead if you had not intervened.”

“Fate intervened.”

Yennefer hummed.

“Fate’s a bitch. And given far more credit than She deserves.”

“Given far more blame, as well,” said Geralt.

“I called you a coward once,” she said. “I’m glad to be wrong.”

“Didn’t expect it to be like this,” he said. The girl on the training field let out a fierce shout that carried on the chilled air. “Found her in those woods, and from the moment I saw her I knew--” He clenched and unclenched a fist. “Who gives a shit about Destiny? I’d still go after her every time.”

Music drifted from the fortress somewhere. The minstrel could be sitting to strum his instrument in any alcove or rampart or terrace across the whole place.

Or, she realized with a bitter pang, the music may echo through the vibrating thread of their bond. Did Geralt hear it? Did the girl on the training field?

She had once been able to block out the connection to the poet, but it flared too strongly now. Sparks and thrums of emotion leapt through it at odd moments like flotsam cast off by a celestial body pulled into her orbit.

_Who gives a shit about Destiny?_

“You made a choice,” said Yennefer. “It’s our choices that define us. Not those things that were chosen for us.”

“Mmmm,” Geralt hummed in agreement.

“You know, we would have been a formidable pair. If everything had gone very differently.”

“I’m not sleeping with you, Yen.”

“Shut up. I’m trying to have a moment here.”

“Still not sleeping with you.”

“Not _that_ kind of moment,” she said, leaning beside him on the railing. “Though I can’t lie and say I haven’t thought about it.”

She remembered him in Rinde, the scarred plane of his back against the ripple of the water, the tangle of his silver hair, the tension in his tired smile.

“I’m still not--”

“Oh, don’t pretend that bath we shared wasn’t fraught with sexual energy.”

“Maybe,” said Geralt, “but instead, you and my bard chose to--”

“ _No_. Not chose. He made a wish. He bent my will to his.”

“Come on, Yen. You know that’s not how it happened.”

“He took my choice,” said Yennefer. Flitting chords of lute music rose on a cool breeze. “I’ll break the djinn’s wish, and be free of him. _And_ I’ll restore what was taken from me. Fuck that dragon and fuck destiny. I refuse to be cowed by talk of impossibilities. I refuse to roll onto my back and submit to the demands of Fate.”

“Glad we were never together,” mused Geralt. “Less chance to get you this pissed off at me.”

“It could happen yet,” said Yennefer, then rushed to clarify, “pissing me off that is; I’m not fucking sleeping with you.”

“And thank the gods for that.”

* * *

While Yennefer skirted the outside of the Witcher’s keep, orbiting from a distance, the poet seemed to intertwine himself directly in the center of the lot of them.

Nightly, the Witchers prepared and shared supper together, gathering around the long table in the great hall to eat and drink and be merry. The meals were simplistic but hearty and filling, and she wondered at how large their stores must have to be to maintain the level of feasting the Witchers indulged in throughout the long winter.

Yennefer’s sense of propriety did not allow her to sneak away with her portion and eat alone, though she increasingly felt starkly at odds with the rest.

The Witchers bantered and roughhoused freely with one another, a warm camaraderie built over decades.

Even Ciri was included, wrestling with Coen or flicking bits of her food at Lambert or stealing sips of ale from Eskel’s mug that was not the watered down version they allowed her or making rude gestures that would have earned her a severe lashing if attempted in a dining hall at Aretuza.

Though Yennefer sat shoulder to shoulder with the witchers at the table, she may as well be in a separate room. She was an outsider and made no effort to ingratiate herself to them. She had been brought here for a purpose, not to make friends.

If she was engaged in conversation, it was polite and tight-lipped. Wary.

Geralt alone seemed to enjoy her company, nudging her or lifting an eyebrow to include her in one of his horrid, wry jokes.

And Jaskier made a pointed effort not to look at her at all.

He maintained his same cheery, overblown sense of showmanship but spoke past her, addressing the lot as though she were not there.

* * *

After supper, the hearth was banked high, and the ale doled out freely.

Vesemir often retired early after an exaggerated stretch of his back and pop of his joints, and the little Witcher girl was shooed off to bed and went away reluctantly.

Each night before the fire, the poet took up his lute and spun circles around the Witchers, cavorting and caterwauling and all but canoodling. Falling into this lap or the other, wiggling and crooning lilting lines of poetry.

Yennefer nursed her ale and could not look away, her gaze catching on the broad palms that cupped his hips, the fond smiles on the Witchers’ faces, the sultry looks through lowered lashes. As the flames danced and shadows shifted, she could not tell what was her imagination and what was reality.

Had Eskel’s thumb stroked tenderly along the thigh that bracketed his lap or had it only been a trick of the light? Had Lambert reeled him in to kiss the line of his jaw or simply to speak some teasing thing in his ear? Had Coen pressed their hips close together as they danced and twirled through the hall or was she simply imagining it?

Did one of them take him afterward for a heated tumble in their bedchamber? Or did all of them? Did they swap nights, perhaps, stopping just short of drafting a roster?

Maybe Yennefer’s eyes deceived her. Maybe her imagination ran away with her. She could not say.

It was no business of hers.

It drove her half mad.

She said nothing, asked no questions, sat among them to take long pulls of her ale. Unable to look away from the careening minstrel. Unable to stop the swell of heat that rose in her belly.

Even Geralt found himself the target of the bard’s bubbly affection, but here at least, she recognized the usual cadence of their platonic relationship. Jaskier slung an arm around his shoulders or pressed their foreheads together to speak quietly or draped over his back with arms locked around his neck, but she had seen the same in taverns across the Continent.

Geralt bore it as he always had, with grunting and smiles hidden into his mug.

At times as the bard clung to the Witcher, she almost expected him to look her way, flushed and grinning and offer a lascivious wink as he may once have.

To pout and extend an arm, beckoning hand opening and closing.

To meet her eyes and beam, to saunter toward her, the crowd shrinking away to a blur as his world reduced to her alone.

He did not look her way.

Yennefer burned.

* * *

Long after retiring to her tower, she lay on the thin mattress on the cold floor and pulled the quilts tight around her body.

When she slept, she shared his dreams, twisting paths and contorted imagery.

She did not sleep very much at all.

33

Lambert caught her in a shadowed stairwell, his eyes taking on an eerie shine in the half-darkness. He did not crowd or touch her, did nothing but stand and cross his arms, head tilted to regard her, but she felt as trapped as an insect in a net, pinned down for inspection.

“What’d you do to him?” he growled, and his contempt for her was clear in his gravelly voice. It bore a striking resemblance to conversations she had had with Geralt in the early days, but this Witcher, it seemed, did not have the same scruples over baring his fangs at a potential threat.

It was well past dark, the rest of Kaer Morhen sleeping soundly. Or she had thought so.

Her own sleeplessness had driven her from her tower to wander the cold fortress. Most nights, she simply sat meditating in her tower or reading through some of the manuscripts she had brought up from the library, but tonight, squinting at the swirling runes distorting in the candlelight had proven too taxing.

It had to be closer to morning than not, but Lambert looked as though he’d just stepped from a training field. Maybe he had. Maybe he too suffered from sleeplessness.

Yennefer was certain Witchers had abundant fuel for night terrors.

“I’m flattered,” she said, attempting to look as straight and poised as one could when wearing a night dress. It was no tattered old thing; she was not some _commoner_ , but it was the principle of the thing. “I’m flattered that you seem to think me so powerful. Whatever the poet has suffered, he has brought on himself.”

Lambert’s upper lip twisted in a snarl, revealing the sharp jut of his canines.

“He’s different,” he said. “There’s something off about him. Smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Laughs a little too loud.”

“How very sweet,” she said. “Does he know that you watch him so closely? Or have you not yet professed your love for him? Don’t be shy. He is… _loose_ enough with his affections that I’m sure he can easily make room for you.”

He growled, a low thing that rose from the depths of his throat.

“What did you do?” he repeated and took a step forward, his hulking form blocking more of the moonlight from the narrow window cut into the stairwell.

It suddenly enraged her. How dare her accuse her of damaging the bard, while some part of her still felt as flayed and raw as in that moment on the mountainside. How dare he assume Yennefer the aggressor in all this, as though Jaskier was simply a hapless victim caught up in her schemes.

“You don’t know him as well as he wants you to believe,” she said. Yennefer felt as though she should be trembling with rage, crackling with energy, but instead, she stood in complete stillness in the stairwell before the Witcher. “I did nothing to him. Nothing that he didn’t beg for.”

She felt a horrible sense of deja vu, remembering Geralt’s objections long ago.

“You witc--”

She raised her hand to stop him as he advanced on her.

“Do you think yourself his noble protector? Threatening a woman alone in the middle of the night? Do you think he would be pleased by this show of masculinity? Do you think he’d fall into bed with you in thanks?”

Lambert had the good sense to step back and look almost sheepish.

“Sorry,” he grunted. “Didn’t mean to--”

“Ask him,” said Yennefer, heat blazing through her body. The Witcher flinched farther back from her. “Do not accuse or insult me until you have him tell you what cruel trick he played.”

He grimaced and nodded, slipping away from her and into the dark as suddenly as he had come.

* * *

Eskel’s approach was more dignified but no less patronizing.

“You’re having a lover’s quarrel,” he said, confronting her in the library. He folded his arms across his barrel chest.

“What a surprise seeing you here, Eskel,” said Yennefer, returning her attention to the parchment spread across her work surface. “I wasn’t aware that you could read.”

The witcher, clearly used to dealing with ornery deflection, shook his head with a chuckle.

“What happened? Did he sing that one about the baker too many times?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m asking,” he said. “He’s miserable.”

“Good,” said Yennefer curtly.

“Ah, so it’s like that. Well can I just say, in his defense--”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“-- that you seem like a fairly unlikable person anyway.”

“Thank you,” said Yennefer. She dipped her quill in the inkwell and scratched out a fresh note. The treatise on blood magic that was among the tomes Vesemir had brought her had proven particularly interesting in regard to the nearly physical nature of their connection.

Eskel cleared his throat.

“Oh, you’re still here,” she said, “thought you were quite finished.”

She folded her hands in front of her on her work surface, eyebrows raised as she waited on whatever continuing drivel would come out of the Witcher’s mouth.

“Didn’t come here to insult you, sorry,” he said.

“Are you going to get to the point, then?”

“He misses you. Or something.”

“Or something is right,” she said. “He misses what’s between my legs.”

“Sure you’re not overselling yourself there?”

“Get out, witcher,

“Fine, fine,” said Eskel, holding up his hands to placate her. “But get it the fuck together. Or else. I’m tired of him mooning over you and pretending not to.”

“You dare to threaten--”

The scarred Witcher flitted out of the library before she could finish the thought.

* * *

“So you and Jaskier?” asked Coen one morning, the frost glittering on the stone buttresses of the courtyard.

“Yes,” she said.

Most mornings, she sat down with the Witcher girl for an hour of magical lessons and discussion. Ciri had so far proven herself abysmally unsuccessful at any trial that Yennefer put to her. Their hour ended up devoted mostly to answering the girl’s curious questions.

Not just about magic but about Yennefer’s life, about the politics of the Continent, about Witchers and mages, about the content of Jaskier’s songs.

One of the Witchers often came to retrieve the girl after her lessons with some new task for her, but this morning, Coen had arrived late, after Yennefer had already sent the girl back to the keep. He found her sitting on a stone bench in the courtyard with her hands folded in her lap, the chilled air biting her lungs and pluming white on her exhales, and sat down beside her.

Apparently, she would have to endure more childish questions. This time from a grown man.

The pockmarked Witcher shook his head, his corn silk fringe falling into his eyes.

“Just can’t wrap my head around that,” he said. “Seems like a poor match.”

“It was,” said Yennefer, trying and failing at a neutral tone. The bitterness crept in.

“You’re very different from him.”

“An obvious statement.”

“But you look at each other the same way.”

“I don’t look at him.”

“You do,” said Coen. “All the time actually.”

Yennefer huffed.

She did. The draw of the wish, she assumed. She often struggled to look away.

“Mind your tongue, child. I’m many decades your senior.”

“Not so many decades. I’m older than I look.”

“And I’m older still.”

“He looks at you the same way,” insisted Coen. He dared for a moment to touch her arm, a fleeting touch and away again. “I don’t know that he realizes he’s looking. He tries not to, I think. But it’s the same way that you look at him. I’m not wrong.”

Yennefer knew that he wasn’t wrong.

Still.

“It means nothing,” she said.

“You’re a terrible liar,” said Coen.

“And you’re a little twerp. Go find your Witcher girl. She’s probably off shirking her duties somewhere. Like you are right now.”

* * *

“Geralt tells me of a wish that binds you and the bard,” said Vesemir as he approached her poring over manuscripts in the dingy library.

Yennefer cursed under her breath.

“I’ll geld him,” she said, smacking down her quill onto the rustling parchment on which she was taking notes. The blot of an inkstain bled from it. “That was not his truth to tell.”

“No, blame me. I asked him directly. After all these years, he knows better than to attempt to lie to me.”

“How much did he tell you?”

“A djinn,” said Vesemir. “Is that the knowledge you search for here?”

“A djinn,” Yennefer agreed. “A way to end the curse.”

“A wish that you would get what you want sounds like a poor curse.”

“No, it didn’t give me what I wanted. The wish was twisted, as djinn magic is wont to do. Instead, it connected the bard and I together. We are drawn to one another. Share dreams. Experiences. Emotions, sometimes. Glimpses of the future.”

“Body and mind,” mused Vesemir. “And the heart, it would seem.”

“Quit your speculation, Witcher,” said Yennefer. “You don’t know a thing about any of it.”

“About djinn wishes? Or about matters of the heart?”

“About either,” she said. “I don’t care to hear it.”

She sat stiffly before him, defiant, and he looked at her with amusement shining in his very old eyes. Thankfully, he did not go on to tell her anyway, instead rustling through the shelves and pulling down a few choice tomes and setting them on top of those that she had already piled high.

“The bard’s smile does not reach his eyes,” said the oldest Witcher, the same trite nonsense that Lambert had expressed. “And your anger does not quite reach yours.”

She fumed in the library long after Vesemir had gone and did not get much useful study done that day.

* * *

Geralt walked beside her along a weather-worn rampart, his hands clasped behind his back, their shoulders brushing sometimes.

Finally, she could no longer hold herself back from asking.

“Did you know that your brothers have had a lot to say to me about the poet?” Yennefer asked.

“Oh?” asked Geralt, with a look that said he had known.

“Each one came to me in turn. Lambert threatened me. Eskel did much the same. Coen and Vesemir expressed some delusions of theirs,” said Yennefer. “What is he to them?”

“I can’t speak for them,” said the Witcher. “You’ll have to ask them yourself.”

“Don’t give me that,” she said.

“They care about him,” said Geralt. “There are not many like him. Not many who see them as people first, rather than simply Witchers.”

“Does he fuck them?”

Geralt snorted.

“That’s a personal question,” he said. “Ask them.”

* * *

Yennefer did not ask.

Instead, she languished on her mattress through long, sleepless nights in the cold tower, imagining whose bed the poet warmed.

She thought of Lambert’s sneering face pressed down into the sheets by a rough palm against the back of his head, Jaskier behind him, filling him, muttering praise into the sweat-slick hollow of his back.

She thought of Eskel with Jaskier cradled in his lap, his scarred lips seeking out the nub of Jaskier’s nipple, rolling it between his sharp teeth and warm tongue.

She thought of Coen laughing in an embrace, rolling with Jaskier as though sparring and kissing sweetly like young lovers, the cloying softness of the moment interrupted by abrupt tickling that broke the both of them into laughter again.

She thought of Geralt, who Jaskier loved and trusted most deeply of all, who claimed to have never bedded the poet or been interested in doing so but perhaps had found fresh inspiration this winter. Both could have died, after all. Either could have lost the other.

It would be natural to fall into bed together after that great span of years. Knowing each other well enough that it was like coming home. Geralt’s milk-white hair falling in a curtain across Jaskier’s face, Jaskier twined around him like he would die without it.

Yennefer could not decide if these were simple fantasies or glimpses of real events allowed by their bond. She didn’t care. She didn’t want them, the heated flashes of Jaskier intertwined with the Witchers blurring with memories of how he had looked in her bed.

And in others’ beds. And in the baths, often. And against walls and in hallways, cloistered in half-public spaces. On terraces and verandas and rooftops.

She thought of Jaskier, his lips parted and gasping in pleasure, his eyes rolling back in his head.

She slipped her hand between her legs to feel her arousal pulse wildly there.

“Shit,” she groaned but twisted her fingers to seek her own pleasure despite how adolescent this felt, how very silly. _It was only logical,_ she thought as warmth filled her. It was only that it had been too long since she last bedded anyone, since before Sodden, since--

Her overactive imagination and heightened libido were understandable.

She was lonely here, and the nights were cold.

Jaskier was warm in her memory, flushed and humming, his legs entangled with hers, his fingers tapping out a rhythm along her ribcage, his mouth warmer still where it brushed her collarbone, her sternum, her belly.

She missed him. Oh gods, she missed him.

As her orgasm struck her in a tingle of seeping pleasure through her groin, she shivered with an exhaled breath that gave way to a quiet streak of tears down her cheeks.

When she slept and dreamed, it was of him and of other bodies flush to his, all sinew and puckered scars.

She did not sleep very much at all.

34

The snows came on at last, falling from bruised clouds that hung low over the mountains, further softening the worn stone edges of Kaer Morhen and muffling the sounds of life within the keep.

Rhythmic chords of lute music managed to haunt her even so.

The witcher girl’s magical lessons moved indoors, but her slow progress soon grew tedious. The girl could not even master the simple Witcher signs, and endless drilling seemed a waste of both of their time.

Instead, Yennefer began to teach the girl more practical things that the Witchers had neglected to instruct her in. Like politics and history and how to pencil on eyeliner.

The latter was at the girl’s request, and Yennefer obliged, despite feeling horribly wrong-footed as she tipped the girl’s face toward her and drew a careful smear with kohl along the trembling lid of her closed eye. Ciri echoed the gesture in the mirror for the other eye, the kohl on that side wavering unevenly.

It felt like something a mother should teach her, not some stranger in the upper room of a crumbling witcher’s keep.

But Ciri’s mother was long gone. So was her home and any comfort that she had ever known.

All Ciri had now was Geralt, who fumbled and strained his way through his new guardianship of the girl but seemed to do so with increasing success. And the other Witchers, who did not have the faintest clue how to raise a young girl but tried their damndest all the while.

And the poet, who told her Cintran folktales by the fire and dipped into songs that would be more familiar to her and dragged his fingers through her ashen hair when she fell asleep sometimes on the bench after supper.

And Yennefer.

Who fumbled worse than Geralt.

Who found herself desperately and inexplicably wishing to get things right here. To not bungle this newfound thing that flared to life through that winter in Kaer Morhen. She felt like a stranger to herself, this new Yennefer who rescued poets and cared for children and engaged in grand feats of martyrdom with no expectation of reward like she had on the cusp Sodden Hill.

She did not know herself but knew she was ill-equipped to do any lasting good for Ciri. She did not have Geralt’s bravery and quiet compassion. She did not have the other witchers’ warm camaraderie.

She did not have the poet’s abiding love and humor and steadfast loyalty.

She did not know herself anymore, but she did know this.

* * *

One morning in the lull during a lesson on scrying, Ciri leaned out the open window, sighing wistfully over the white mounds of snow and the Witchers down muddying the training field.

“Close the window,” said Yennefer. “There’s hardly enough warmth in this blasted keep without you letting it all escape.”

“So use magic,” said the girl, leaning back inside the window. “You could warm up this whole place. I know you could.”

Yennefer ignored the way that her open faith in her abilities warmed her. The child had not even seen her do anything more strenuous than levitate stones or whisper the dried husk of a flower into life. She had had no episodes and only ordinary bad dreams since Yennefer arrived. It all proved to be fairly anti-climactic.

“A trivial sap of energy,” said Yennefer. “The entire keep? For what purpose? Plus, those Witchers down there seem to love suffering. They thrive on it.”

“Just this room, then. You could warm this room.”

“I could. But I won’t. Now, come away from the window.”

“Why? We’re not doing a single thing today, Lady Yennefer. I’m tired of reading. My eyes are crossing. I could go blind.”

Yennefer, who had suffered a week of darkness after the Battle of Sodden Hill, desperately terrified that her sight would not return to her, smiled tightly at the witcher girl.

“Stop complaining, ugly one. Would you rather do sums with Vesemir? Would you rather scrub pots in the kitchens?”

“No,” said Ciri. “I’d rather go sledding.”

“Hmmm, I’m sure you would. And I’d rather have a student who did not whine and complain so often.”

“You could magic us snowshoes.”

“I could.”

“And fur hats.”

“Yes.”

“So why don’t you?”

And why didn’t she indeed?

A scant ten minutes later found them parading across the grounds, dressed in luxurious fur that Yennefer had conjured with a snap of her fingers and steps exaggerated by their snowshoes. She could have simply magicked their boots to melt the snow beneath their feet or swept a path easily in front of them, but there were times when indulging Ciri’s impulses felt like catching up on every childhood memory that had evaded her.

The two of them traipsed toward the edge of a steep hill that careened down toward the training field.

Another snap of her fingers.

A curved, cherry-red sled appeared before Ciri in the snow.

“There’s your sled, little witcher,” said Yennefer. “Off you go.”

The girl blinked owlishly at her, looking far smaller than she was in her oversized coat, plush fur hat slipping sideways off her head.

“You’re coming with me,” she said.

“Ha! No, I don’t think so.”

“How do I stop the sled?”

Yennefer considered this, imagining the girl careening into a snowbank and breaking her little Witcher limbs. Geralt would be cross. She peered down at the training field where the Witchers seemed occupied enough with hand to hand combat.

It would be humiliating to be caught engaging in such childish things, especially when Yennefer’s sole purpose here was to instruct the girl. None of Yennefer’s mentors, certainly, had ever indulged in her naive and impulsive desires, and each one had been snuffed from her in time until she could not quite recall what any of them had been in any detail.

Well, that settled it then.

“Fine,” she said, and together, they clambered onto the curved sled.

In the end, the only careening into snowbanks was done by Eskel and Lambert who were forced to dive apart to avoid being taken out at the knees by a cackling sorceress and screeching girl on a cherry-red sled.

The wind whipped the fur cap from Ciri’s head, and she howled, Yennefer’s arms tightening around her as a whisper of magic brought the sled to a swerving stop that sprayed a long arc of loose snow over Geralt and Coen.

By the time the four witchers had scrambled to their feet and wiped the ice out of their eyes, Yennefer and the witcher girl were up and away running hand in the hand, the sled disintegrating with a hiss, their laughter echoing over the snow-laden grounds.

Not fast enough for a Witcher, one of which let loose a snowy projectile that soundly met its mark, striking the back of Yennefer’s head.

Yennefer drew up short, the girl forced to stop along with her.

The scene froze.

Ice melted into her dark curls and trickled down the back of her neck. The cold air stung her lungs as she drew sharp breaths, her heart rate thundering in her ears. Her body itched for a fight.

When was the last time she had run just for the fun of it? She couldn’t recall.

Yennefer glanced at Ciri beside her, who looked back at her with trepidation. The little Witcher girl was pink and wind-blown, worrying her lip between her teeth as though she would be scolded.

She arched an eyebrow. Ciri beamed.

Yennefer reeled with a swish of her fur cloak, arms extended, dark curls lifting behind her foreboding form as she unleashed a powerful blast of chaos in the form of several dozen carefully aimed snowballs.

Said projectiles sailed true and struck their spluttering targets. A short-lived victory. A volley was soon returned her way, which she swept aside and redirected.

True mayhem descended.

A bright peal of laughter interrupted the chaotic slinging of ice and snow.

It was only then that Yennefer noticed the poet perched with his lute on a nearby railing, or more accurately, noticed him topple off the nearby landing into a snowbank while his body convulsed with shudders of laughter over the scene that unfolded before him. He struggled on his back in the pile of snow, managing only to bury himself deeper.

He wore borrowed winter clothing, looking nearly as ridiculous as Ciri in her oversized furs, choking with impassioned humor but carefully holding his lute by the neck above him to protect it from the snow.

Something about the gesture warmed her. Comical and familiar.

The little fool caught her watching and grinned.

It took her a blink to notice that she was grinning back, her cheeks aching with cold, and in her distraction, a projectile struck her on the shoulder and exploded into a spray of ice.

The culprit stood a fair bit away, as pale as the snow and covering her mouth with oversized fur mittens.

Yennefer imagined the unholy wrath that would have been unleashed had she done something as juvenile as strike her own mentor with a ball of snow. If she were an instructor of any serious standing, she would take the girl by the ear back to the keep for a lashing. The morning had dissolved into fits of foolish hysterics, and it should be shameful the way her heart pounded with excitement, her cheeks ached with delight.

She realized with a start that some of that delight was not her own, a bright spark of joy leaping through her bond with the poet. She allowed it for the ways it filled a void she hadn’t realized was there, the absence of his joy not noticed until it swallowed her again.

She had missed it. Oh gods, she had missed him.

Her brief flare of humiliation dissipated as soon as it appeared.

Blinking dripping ice from her lashes, Yennefer shrieked with a feigned fury that dissolved into laughter and whirled to resume the frozen battle, a shared delight rippled through her.

* * *

In the aftermath, its abrupt souring caused her to stumble.

Yennefer and Ciri, dripping wet and shivering, had retreated into the keep, planning a much-needed trip to the hot springs in the caverns below.

“Lady Yennefer, what’s wrong?” asked Ciri as Yennefer straightened herself again. The bitterness that pooled in her belly was not her own but hers slowly rose to meet it.

It was jarring and unsettling and unfair.

He had done this to her, bound them, chained her, and then dared to ruin even this small shred of fleeting joy.

“Nothing, little ugly one,” she said, and with a hand on her ashen head, they descended the slick stairs to the caverns below the keep together.

They settled into a shallow pool in silence, Ciri sinking low in the water to blow bubbles and Yennefer engaged in perfunctory scrubbing.

The steaming warmth of the hot springs did not diminish the acrid sting of regret.

 _How dare he_ , she thought in a bubble of rage that built and sought crescendo.

35

Not two days later, the outlet for said rage revealed itself, in the form of Jaskier and Coen tangled together in a barely-hidden alcove in one of Kaer Morhen’s twisting passageways, their tongues down each other’s throats and trousers around their ankles.

The witcher and the bard were of similar height, Coen shorter by a hair. Their builds were similar as well, though the Witcher was broader through the shoulders and thicker through the waist. Coen had a pale leg hooked around the back of Jaskier’s thigh, accentuating the round curve of his naked backside. They rutted together in the shadows, mouths locked, looking like an elaborate parody of the things that Yennefer had imagined alone in her cold tower at night.

To have at least some iteration of her fantasies confirmed before her eyes twisted something dark and furious in her gut.

“How _dare_ you?” growled Yennefer, and they leapt apart at once, scrambling to tug at their fallen waistbands. “Engaging in such crass fumblings where anyone could see. A _child_ lives here, you fools. You dullards.”

Coen ducked his head and muttered what could have been a sheepish apology, but Jaskier puffed up his chest and stood square to face her.

“Oh come off it, don’t you lecture me, Yennefer of Vengerberg.” One hand was still fisted in his unlaced trousers and the other gestured wildly. “It’s the middle of the fucking night. What one sees snooping about hallways past midnight is their own responsibility, child or not. And Ciri is _not_ a child. Neither am I.”

“Oh really? You certainly behave like one.”

“You have no right to scold me. You have no fucking right.”

“This isn’t a scolding, idiot. You’ll know when I’m scolding you.”

“Pshhh, you gain one pupil and suddenly you know all about scolding. _I’m_ the professor, don’t you remember?”

“And the gods know who approved that. You’re utterly juvenile. Infantile. Puerile.”

“And you’re… well… you’re a cunt!”

“Um,” said Coen, shuffling awkwardly. “I’ll just be--”

“You stay put,” barked Yennefer in the same moment that Jaskier grabbed a fist of his tunic.

“Sorry, sorry, but I need witnesses for this,” mumbled Jaskier. “Tell the others who offed me if this goes south.”

“If this goes-- I’ll show you south,” howled Yennefer and made to knee him in the groin. Coen scrambled forward to stop her, and the three of them scrabbled together for a moment before Yennefer felt how futile and childish it all was and leapt back, straightening her heaving shoulders.

Coen had Jaskier by the shoulder of his doublet, his other hand held out to hold her off if she happened to launch forward again. Jaskier’s trousers had fallen back down around his ankles, and he stooped to tug them high.

They looked a sight together, rumpled clothing and disheveled hair.

They looked well-suited to each other.

“I knew it,” said Yennefer.

“Knew _what_?”

“That you would rush to fall to your knees for any willing body that would have you. You’re fucking all of them, aren’t you?”

“ _What?_ ” Jaskier sputtered. “That’s not-- that’s none of your-- you have no _right_.”

“I have every right,” she said, voice rising in volume. “I have every right and more after what was done to me. After what you continue to do.”

“I haven’t continued anything. I keep away from you. I give you your space.”

“You’re in my head. Under my skin. I can feel you through that fucking bond. Your dreams. Your desires. All while your Witchers are passing you back and forth like a two-penny whore.”

Jaskier made an outraged noise.

“Not that it’s any of your _fucking_ business, but it’s just Coen. The wolf Witchers are-- They’re Geralt’s brothers. I’m not about to-- You can’t speak to me like--”

“I can speak to you however I like.”

“You have no right to be _cruel_ ,” said Jaskier. “You can’t cling to every wrong you’ve ever suffered as if no one else has ever possibly endured anything as awful or horrible or--”

“I _can_ ,” she shouted. “I can and I will.”

She realized the petulance of the outburst as soon as it left her mouth. She was a stamp of her foot short of a tantrum. She hated the poet then with her entire being. She hated him from head to toe, the rage flowing from her fingertips to the depths of her belly.

Belatedly, she realized that Coen had disappeared in the midst of the shouting.

And that she had stepped closer to Jaskier, drawing herself up to her full and not so impressive height, leaving her staring up into his flushed face.

She felt taut like a bowstring.

She hated him so very much.

The kiss she dragged him into was simply an inevitable manifestation of that hatred. It was what they knew, what they had perfected together. The furious push and pull and heated slide of bodies that had defined their relationship since the start.

The kiss echoed their very first in the ruined manor house, a mess of teeth and tongue and exhaled breaths. Mostly unpleasant, too much spit, their rhythm out of sync.

But she ached with it, she ached in the places where they touched and the places where they didn’t.

Yennefer gripped the back of his head, her fingers pulling at the tufts of hair at the nape of his neck, and she softened the frantic edge of the kiss, holding her lips against his. She breathed through her nose as the line of his body warmed her, feeling the pulse of his erection against her belly. When she pulled back, his eyes were dark, his brow creased.

Jaskier’s palms found a grip on her hip bones and tugged her around until he had her pinned against the wall of the alcove. His trousers sagged, a detail that had been comical just a moment before and now seemed horribly convenient.

Her hand trembled as she reached for him, fitting her palm against the velvet smoothness of his cock. His breath shuddered. Their eyes met, the shadows not so deep that she could not see his longing expression.

She hated him. She hated every inch of him.

She swept a thumb under the head of his cock and swallowed his gasp with an off-center kiss.

It was simple and inevitable, the hitching of her leg behind Jaskier’s thigh, echoing the young witcher’s earlier posture. His hands dropped to her own thighs and sought the heated skin beneath her nightdress. He paused there, breaking from the kiss. He pressed his forehead against her temple, breathed against her ear.

“You want me to--?”

“Yes.”

“Are you--?”

“ _Yes_.”

He hooked both arms beneath her thighs, hoisted her up in his tight grip, and pressed her back flush against the wall of the alcove. He took a beat of held breath to line himself up, erection nudging between her legs but not sinking in. It had been so long without that the initial stretching press of him ached like it had not since she was a girl. He seemed to sense this, holding still while Yennefer breathed in stilted gasps, crowded in and surrounded by him.

He held still for so long that her impatience swelled and she nudged the backs of his thighs with her heels like one would to encourage a lazy horse.

“Go on,” she said. “Have you forgotten how that works?”

“Excuse me for being courteous,” he said and adjusted his hold on her thighs to shift farther inside of her. She dropped her head back against the wall. “Excuse me for being a gracious and attentive lover.”

“You call this attentive?” She spurred him in the ass once more.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“You’re not fucking me.”

He proceeded to do so, starting with leisurely thrusts that inspired more heel-prodding and groaning and finally deepening to a pace that sped and intensified, pressing her farther up the wall with each roll of his hips.

The knobs of her spine rubbed against the alcove and her thighs began to shake, her mind gloriously blank and occupied only by his honeysuckle scent, the heat of his body, the flex of the muscles in his back and thighs, the burn of his stubble against her bared neck. She could feel nothing through their bond but the thrum of arousal. Thought of nothing. Forgot all else.

Of course, the little idiot promptly interrupted said blankness by opening his mouth.

“I know you,” he whispered as he moved inside her, apropos of nothing.

“Oh shut it. Just fuck me. Do _not_ get sappy on me right now, you little--”

“I know that you hide vulnerability with hostility.”

“Big words,” she said, gasping through a pointed thrust.

“I know that you want this.”

“No really? How did you figure--”

“I’m being serious. I’m trying to say something.”

“And I’m trying to get off. Your blabbering is not helping.”

“You get off just fine on your own. I know you do. I can feel it.”

“You can-- _ah_.” Yennefer groaned. His pace remained relentless, making thoughts difficult to hold on to, let alone express. “Fuck that fucking connection. Fuck you and your-- _fuck_.”

“Eloquent.”

“Shut up. Shut up and--”

“Quit fucking kicking me, you horrible woman. You have the boniest fucking heels I swear to--”

“I’ll kick you in more regrettable places if you don’t--”

“Oh and then who will fuck you, hmm? I could go off and tumble anyone I’d like apparently. The whore of Kaer Morhen _apparently_ , but you?”

Something cold sank into her, the fury dulling.

His mouth twisted, and he seemed to regret the words at once. Rather than say anything more, he tucked his head, pressing his forehead to her shoulder, and fucked up into her with fresh intensity.

She bore it, encouraging him with fresh thumps of her heels. She allowed her wailing moans to rise in volume, to echo off of the high ceilings of the shadowed hallway and further into the keep. A part of her wanted to be heard, for someone to bear witness to the painful swell of her pleasure. And it did hurt, sharp and overwhelming, like the long-faded ache of his initial penetration.

Her last scream as her orgasm punched through her wavered with the same unsteadiness as her legs as he lowered her back to the floor, evidence of his own release slipping from within her body. Her nightdress fell to cover her naked legs, the hem sweeping the stone floor

The sudden cold as he stepped back from her reflected the chill behind her ribcage.

There was a dampness on her shoulder where his face had pressed, and long after he had gone, the dark of the alcove embraced her.

* * *

For a little while after what had occurred in that shadowed hallway long past midnight, the poet and the mage resumed their former routine. A careful dance of avoiding one another and not making eye contact.

Yennefer felt Coen watching her sometimes, certainly curious about what had happened after his departure that night. She did not know if he and Jaskier resumed their clandestine sexual meetings.

She did not want to know.

The silence and avoidance did not last long. Yennefer found it exhausting. The averted glances and mumbled excuses and rush not to be in the same room alone with the other. The mournful thrum across the bond, tinged with a lingering warmth of arousal.

It was exhausting.

It had to end. She had to put an end to it.

* * *

One night after supper, she caught Jaskier by the wrist as he excited the great hall, tugging him somewhere more private. Still in earshot of any witcher in the keep, she knew, but with enough of a pretense of expected privacy that perhaps they would respect it.

She reached an empty chamber and pushed him through the door. An old study, cobwebbed and grimey.

“Yennefer, what--”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “for calling you a slut.”

“Ehhh,” said the poet, looking taken aback. “Didn’t miss the mark that terribly.”

“Shut up, I’m apologizing. Now, apologize to me. And mean it.”

“Yennefer, what for? You can’t just--”

“Apologize, you trollop.”

“You know I’m sorry. You already know.”

“For what, Jaskier? Tell me.”

He looked at her forlornly, rubbing at the skin of his knuckles, pulling at his fingers.

“For the things I said the other night. Implying no one would want you.” She raised an eyebrow, and he dragged in a shaky breath. “For the wish. For binding you. For not… telling you all those years. For not fucking thinking. For being an idiot. For putting us in danger. For loving you. For giving a shit. I don’t know.” He seemed uncomfortable and frustrated and stretched thin, the words long withheld and jumbling together now that she had dragged them free.

“Good,” she said, her voice tight. “Good enough.”

Steeling herself, she extended her pinky finger towards him, feeling utterly ridiculous in every shred of her being.

“Yennefer,” he said, staring at the digit. “What are you doing?”

“I am going to break it,” she said. “ _We_ are going to break it. Swear to me that you will still love me afterward.”

He blinked at her.

“Yennefer,” he repeated, his tone breathless and reverent. “Fucking hell, of course. Of course. I swear it.”

He interlocked their pinkies, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

How foolish it felt. How juvenile. How childish.

Yennefer hardly felt like herself anymore.

She had changed or was still changing.

In the wake of the battle and in the wake of the poet.

In the wake of the unexpected child who rearranged more of her every day.

Yennefer did not mind the thought of it, relearning herself.

She did not know what terrible metamorphosis was yet to come.

* * *

It was an ordinary morning, dust motes flickering in the light that spilled into the dingy library.

Yennefer sat with her feet tucked under her body reading aloud to Ciri from a book of fairytales, one with such an archaic language that even she fumbled over the words. Drifts of snow partially obscured the skylights even so early in the day, so she read by candlelight while Ciri sprawled in her matching high-backed chair, leg kicked over the arm.

She was powering toward the final plot twist, voice rising and falling, finding herself taken with the cadence of story-telling when suddenly the candle at her elbow flickered and sputtered out. There was a dull thump as Ciri’s body fell to the library floor.

Yennefer snapped the book shut and leapt up, candlesmoke whispering around her. Ciri lay with back bowed and mouth open in a muted scream, her fingers clawing against the rug.

An episode.

The first she had had in the weeks since Yennefer’s arrival, and it looked just as horrible as Geralt had described.

At once, she bent to grab her wrist, and Ciri’s fingernails raked painfully against her skin. She met resistance as she reached for her mind and reached further. This resistance had not been there in earlier probings. No ordinary child should be able to erect something so powerful.

Ciri began to howl, something high-pitched and tinged with a preternatural quality that was not hers.

Yennefer managed to clench down and slither past the resistance, and suddenly, she was in the fall of rain, she soared on an eagle’s plume, she screamed in the torrent of a waterfall and rose free as a drop of vapor, she twitched like a flea in the fur of a housecat, she fluttered on the wind like loosened dandelion fluff.

And she saw the Witcher girl in a dark scar of earth, her back turned. The line of the coast spread out ahead of her. Dark water rippling over the horizon, charred ground crumbling beneath her feet.

“Ciri!” she called out to her, and the child’s head jerked toward her in awareness. Her gaze was not her own. Glazed pupils and a slack expression.

A fear gripped her then, a sure feeling that she should have kept quiet, should not have shouted.

Now, the attention of the child that was not a child focused wholly on her.

Her head turned and then her body, and her bare footsteps stirred up puffs of ash. The darkening clouds in the sky tightened and churned, flickering with lightning. The sea frothed up to hiss along the charred ground, still hot from the flames that had blackened it.

“Yennefer of Vengerberg,” said the Ciri who was not Ciri with a voice that warbled with darkness. “Turn back. Do not pry here. Turn away.”

“What are you?” she managed, her voice choked as though by soot and smoke. She extended her arms, reaching, probing at the darkness that possessed the girl, but no truth revealed itself.

The child’s bone-white fingers circled around her outstretched wrist.

Her dead eyes dragged to lock with Yennefer’s.

Something vibrated, like a taut string being plucked.

She felt it quiver through her core and out from her along a flickering wavelength, the thread of a familiar connection. She felt the dark thing grasp it. She felt it tighten like a noose.

_No._

“Oh, how interesting, how very fascinating,” said the queer voice from the child’s mouth. “Oh, how the threads of Fate entangle… what web have you caught yourself in?”

“Don’t,” said Yennefer.

“Who has entangled you?”

Yennefer saw it then, the bond that the djinn’s wish had woven into the world. Coiled veins tangled around her, pulsing with a flickering current. They stretched endlessly away from her across the horizon of the black sea.

She knew who was on the other end.

For a moment, she saw beneath her skin, the sinuous cords plunging between her ribs and tightening around her fumbling organs.

Her heart thundered in her chest.

The pale hand of the child who was not a child brushed her fingertips along the visible thread that stretched like an umbilicus, and an inky blackness dripped along the connection.

 _No_.

Pain lanced through her and fissured out, and her sight vanished, a darkness so solid and complete that it could only be blindness.

The air smelled of smoke.

In the dark of her mind and in the library, Ciri began to scream.

* * *

Yennefer woke.

“Yennefer.”

It was the Witcher, leaning over her. Above his white head, snow blew through shattered skylights.

She lurched upright, and nausea struck her. Geralt steadied her with an arm around her shoulders. Her mind felt hollowed out, all her muscles overtaxed, and she--

“The girl,” she gasped, remembering.

“Ciri’s fine. Shaken but fine.”

“Where?”

“She fell through a portal on the training field. Screaming. What happened, Yen?”

“She’s fine,” Yennefer repeated, her head between her raised legs.

“We couldn’t find you. Didn’t know where she’d come from. And then, Jaskier--”

“ _No._ ” Her outburst startled Geralt enough that he stalled. Another wave of nausea struck her, this one humming out beyond her and fracturing. Pain rushed over her, a feeling like mentally walking on broken glass.

There was something wrong. Something wrong with the bond.

“He collapsed, Yen,” said Geralt, his voice a low rasp. “We haven’t been able to wake him.”

Wind howled through the shattered skylights.

The air smelled of smoke.


	10. part eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** for far too many dream sequences by every hell please no more, a lot of unreality, character injury and magic comas which I should have warned for last time but I was afraid it would be too spoiler-y, sexy fever dreams, emotional anal fingering, platonic c*ddling, old people flirting, oh my god the dream sequences i'm so sorry
> 
> did this author project all their present sick from certain newsworthy viruses unreality feelings onto yen's weird deliirium? yeah? yeah they did. also, expect quick updates until the end here because of this author's said newsworthy virus induced two week hiatus from being a person 
> 
> (not the end of me, i am fine... but we are one chapter and two epilogues away from the finale here)

36

“How long has it been like this?”

“Not yet four days, Nenneke. It’s been--”

“And you waited so long to call me? Why? For the sake of your foolish pride, Yennefer? And you, Vesemir?”

“We had hoped that it would resolve itself. We thought that we could--”

“Tell me how it happened. Do not leave out any details.”

“The child. She is a Source. She suffers episodes. I have been instructing--”

“Alone? Alone in a Witchers’ keep?”

“Alone. There have been extenuating circumstances, Nenneke! Have you forgotten that war is brewing?”

“She will have sanctuary here. Kaer Moerhen is neutral.”

“That’s all very well, Vesemir. That’s all very well until she does something like this.”

“This was not her fault. Something spoke through her. Something--”

“What _happened_ , Yennefer? Speak plainly. Speak the whole truth.”

“Do you truly think I would have called you here if I knew the whole truth?”

“You didn’t call me here at all. Vesemir did.”

“The boy is not getting better.”

“But he’s not getting worse. His color has improved. If I could only--”

“You are getting worse, Yennefer. Whatever has afflicted him, it’s draining you. Through your connection.”

“Connection? I told you to speak plainly, Yennefer! The whole truth!”

“He made a wish. Djinn magic. I have been seeking a way to undo it but was interrupted by... this.”

“How long?”

“Six years or more. Though I only learned the true nature of the bond last year.”

“Yennefer! And you did not think to seek my help earlier? You did not think to--”

“I had it handled!”

“Clearly not!”

“Please, please, this arguing will do the boy no good. What is it, Nenneke? What can be done?”

“The connection must be broken. The djinn wish undone.”

“I already knew as much. You make it sound so simple. What do you think I have been doing here? Twiddling my thumbs?”

“You may as well have been. Djinn magic is not so simple. This is a matter of Destiny. This is a matter of--”

“Oh fuck off. It’s horseshit. All of it. I had this handled.”

“And what of the child?”

“The child does not have the power to release him. She appears to be nothing but ordinary. Whatever possessed her has gone.”

“Latched onto the bond? Or poisoned it?”

“Something spoke through her. Was trying to throw me off the scent. I saw it. It was not her. It was--”

“Tell me what you saw, Yennefer. What you continue to see. Tell me. ”

* * *

When Yennefer dreamed, she saw a flat plane that stretched across the curve of the horizon, bruised clouds skirting the edge of the sea.

She saw the poet’s silhouette, standing above her as she kneeled, as the waves rushed up past her knees, frothing over her calves and bare feet.

She saw him with both hands tightening around the cord that bound them and saw a black spill of ooze drip from his fingers, felt the moment that it touched her, something caustic and so hot it burned cold.

She saw stars rippling in the mirrored water.

* * *

More often than not, her dreams were not dreams.

She slipped from her mind into his, settling amidst their shared memories.

Each morning, she awoke more weary than the night before.

Each night, she slipped back to him.

* * *

Yennefer left the dingy library, Vesemir and Nenneke’s voices rising in volume behind her. She expected the two of them to continue to argue the whole night through and would have stayed to do the same, except that they had seen her grip the corner of the table to stay upright as the words on the manuscripts tumbled across its surface began to spin in woozy circles.

She had been ordered out and to bed, only giving into the demands because both the old priestess and the old Witcher shared a stubbornness to rival hers.

And because she really was quite tired.

She wobbled around the edges, exhaustion leaving her limbs heavy. Her joints and muscles did not feel like her own, and as such, they did not lead her in the direction of her tower.

She closed her eyes and followed the tug of a thread hitched behind her ribcage. Nausea swelled to meet her as she did so.

Sleep would not help, she knew. The fatigue settled deeper all the while.

Her traitorous limbs took her down twisting, stone hallways to a chamber closer to the hearth in the great hall. The air remained warmer here, even through the deep chill of winter, and it was as good a medbay as Kaer Morhen had left.

Yennefer pressed her forehead against the heavy, oak door and listened to the rush of the midnight silence around her. She wanted nothing more than to turn around and head off to her tower and crawl onto her cold mattress on the floor. She wanted nothing more than to give into the exhaustion and sleep.

She may have dozed for a moment, standing against the door. A briefly-held pause of dreamless rest, interrupted only by the sudden awareness that she was very much still upright in the empty hallway, that it would not do to collapse here and be subjected to the unnecessary fuss that would follow.

She wished she could rest a while longer. She wished to turn aside and forget.

But wishes had gotten her into this mess.

Yennefer cracked the door slowly, hand pressed to the solid wood to settle the whine of the hinges. The courtesy was not for the bard, who lay flat and still in the four-poster bed at the center of the room, but for the Witcher at his bedside. The brothers had set an informal rotation, always at least one settled at the unconscious man’s side.

Coen’s blond head stood out against the dark sheets, half-sprawled across the bed while still ostensibly sitting in the chair alongside it. The fingertips of a reaching hand encircled Jaskier’s thin wrist.

She realized only as she crept to the other side of the bed that her care had been unnecessary. The Witcher’s eyes were open, glinting in the dim light. He did not lift his head from the linens.

She cursed her own foolishness.

She could not have possibly tiptoed silently enough not to wake a Witcher.

And Jaskier, of course, would not wake for anything.

* * *

It had been three days and three nights since the incident in the library.

Geralt had carried her in his arms, boots crunching on broken glass from the shattered skylight. Her awareness blurred and fizzled. She could not make her eyes focus, could not force her quivering fingers to fully tighten in the fabric of the Witcher’s shirt.

She had protested that she could walk, she was no invalid, but he did not set her onto her own feet to make a liar of her. Instead, he had carried her through the shadowed hallways of Kaer Morhen and into a fire-warmed bedchamber where a crowd of anxious Witchers gathered around a silent body swaddled in fresh linens, lying eerily still.

There, Geralt had finally given in to her demands to be let down, and she stumbled her way to sink onto the mattress, to scramble up and grasp at the body in the bed, to splay her fingers over his jaw and drop her forehead to his.

She experienced this as though from a fair distance overhead, the little body telescoping away from her, her own body heavy and fumbling.

His lips had been cold when hers brushed against them.

Her tears had been hot as they trembled on her lashes and fell to wet his own.

* * *

Everything that could be tried had been tried in the tedious stretch of the past few days.

From chanted spells to potions to fumigating the bedroom with herbal smoke to crystals laid out on the bedding around him to breathy, desperate pleading to whatever god would listen.

To a moment that Yennefer ached with shame over, when she had dropped to her knees before the Witcher girl and shook her by the shoulders, shouting that she release the magic now, release him, or else she would--

The girl had stared at her in wide-eyed horror, tears welling up, chin wobbling, and Yennefer loosened her hold as quickly as it had tightened. Someone touched a rough palm against her shoulder -- Geralt, standing behind her. She did not know if the intention was to offer comfort or to hold her back from assaulting the girl again, but she grasped at it with a trembling hand, leaning her cheek into the scarred knuckles, her eyes shut.

There had been a sound that built in the room then, a low whine like an animal in pain, and it took her some time to realize that she was making it.

Ciri had folded herself into her lap, head tucked under her chin so that Yennefer’s tears fell into her hair, and she hadn’t deserved the comfort from either of them, not after her outburst, not after what she had done and said, not--

* * *

“You have that look again,” said Coen, chin propped up on his arm. His thumb stroked along the pulsepoint of the blue-veined wrist in his hold, and the scant moonlight through the narrow window in the chamber tipped along the hollows of his lowered face. “This is not your fault. You’re doing what you can.”

The young Witcher had an intensity that startled her. He was not from the School of the Wolf and did not share their gruff aversion to sentiment. She found it suffocating.

“I know,” said Yennefer with a short huff of breath. “He’s done this to himself. The idiot. I don’t blame myself for his own foolishness.”

“Is that why you’ve snuck into his bedroom to watch him sleep in the dead of night?”

“To gloat, yes.”

“Very funny,” said Coen. “Ha ha.”

She stepped to the edge of the bed, ignoring the way her hand trembled against the down of the mattress, pretending that she did not know how easily the Witcher saw through her.

“No change?”

“No change.”

She hesitated only a moment before settling on the bed, back against the headboard and legs tucked up. They threatened to pitch her to the floor otherwise.

Being close to him eased some of her fatigue.

The poet lay very still, the rise and fall of the blankets the only sign of life. Were she as feeble and non-magical as he was, she knew she would be similarly affected.

“Nenneke will want to see him in the morning,” said Yennefer.

“The priestess?”

“She is a practiced healer. Especially of the magical sort.”

“And you’re not?”

Yennefer’s jaw tightened.

“I’ve done what I can,” she said, closing her eyes against a rush of vertigo. “It may be that I am too deeply intertwined with his affliction.”

“Yeah, you look like shit.”

“Piss off, Witcher.”

“You should sleep.”

“Make me.”

“Don’t think I won’t. I’ve already made the others fuck off and get some rest. Do you know how fucking hard it is to convince Geralt of fucking Rivia to go away and at least attempt to sleep?”

“Mmmm, I have an idea, yes.”

The white-haired Witcher had hovered over his dear friend, distraught and touchy and frazzled. If it were not for his Child Surprise and the stubborn insistence of his fellows, he would have shared in her sleeplessness.

“Hey Yen?”

“Yes, Coen?” She cracked an eye and found him standing, Jaskier’s arm lifted to press a last fleeting kiss to the pale knuckles before he turned to leave. She knew he would not go far.

“Go the fuck to sleep.”

And despite attempts to avoid the swell of exhaustion, she did so.

* * *

She woke in her Novigrad apartments on the veranda, potted geraniums bobbing in a gentle breeze, the air fresh with the scents of sea salt and of cooking meat from a vendor somewhere in the lively city below.

Jaskier knelt between her spread legs. His complexion was bronzed, ruddy across his cheeks. His chestnut hair ruffled in the wind and tickled her bare skin. She pressed her fingers into it and scratched her long nails against his scalp. It was just as soft as she remembered.

He did not move to press his lips into the folds between her legs, did nothing but sit back on his heels and look up at her, his palms heating the tender skin of her inner thighs.

The scene blurred with the ochre tones of memory, too warm, too cotton-soft.

But this was not a memory.

Her fingers caught in the tangles of his lengthening hair and cupped the crown of his head.

“Yen,” he whispered, the garbled voice of a man who had not spoken aloud for three days, who lay comatose in a bed in a Witcher keep and spoke to her only in what could be dreams but were not.

“I’m here, Jaskier,” she said, and he leaned his cheek into the crook of her knee. Yennefer sat in a little wicker chair, as uncomfortable here as the patio set had been in reality. She expressed this, trying at light-hearted, missing the quirk of his unabashed smiles with a hollow, desperate ache. “I forgot how uncomfortable these goddamn chairs were.”

His smile was thin and weary , and he tipped his face to kiss the soft, creased skin at the bend of her leg.

“I remember them being equal parts comfortable and uncomfortable,” he said, clearing his throat to test his voice. “You did your very best to cause me _great_ discomfort.” He did not say it like a hardship.

“You deserved it,” she said. “You were a little cock back then. Still are. Don’t try to tell me that you didn’t deserve it.”

“Wouldn’t dare,” he said with a smile and closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to her skin.

This was not a dream, not really. He burned too intensely against her, voice pitched too exactly in a way that dreams could never quite recreate. Each night, her mind followed the twisted, blackened, oozing thread of the damaged bond and found him here, whole and perfect.

Yennefer knew the incantation that would keep her from wandering. It was a simple thing, a muttered word, a sleeping elixir before bed.

It was an easy fix.

Apprentices often suffered such a trouble, at times of high stress flickering from their resting bodies to dip into the minds of another. Usually not with such vivid clarity or so equally shared, but the explanation for that must rest in the intensifying pull of the wish.

Yennefer spoke no incantations and took no sleeping elixir.

In the morning, she would wake as exhausted as before.

And he would not wake for anything.

“Why did you stay?” she asked.

“Stay where?”

“In Novigrad that first winter. In my apartments.”

“Mmmm,” he hummed, “now that’s a deeply philosophical question.”

“No. It’s simple,” she said. “You could have charmed your way into nearly any bed in the city. I treated you roughly and poorly. I insulted you. I offered you nothing. Why stay?”

“I was happy to be in your bed.”

“You _wished_ to be.”

He shook his head, his fringe brushing the line of her leg. She felt the puff of his breath as plainly as if she were awake, goosebumps rising along her skin.

“I wished for you to be happy.”

“You didn’t wish for that. Djinn magic is tricky and manipulative. The exact wording was--”

“I know what it was,” he said. “I am still wishing it.”

“It doesn’t work like that, idiot.”

He smiled then as he sat back on his heels at her feet, glowing as sunnily as ever, a ridiculous crooked grin. His nose and cheeks were dusted with summer freckles. The loosened buttons of his pastel doublet bared his chest. She saw his heartbeat flutter there in the hollow of his collarbone.

He lifted a hand toward her, curled a fist, waggled his extended pinky.

“I swear that I will love you even after all of this is over,” he said. “That’s me wishing.”

“Idiot,” she breathed.

She leaned to press her forehead to his knuckles. Her lips brushed the knobs of his little finger.

Long after the veranda had dissolved around her, the goosebumps remained.

37

Yennefer woke to the swift creak of the chamber door, followed by the pad of feet and the dip of the mattress.

A pulse throbbed at her temples, and it took a frustrating amount of effort to force her eyes open. When she finally managed it, her dry eyelids ached. Some time in the night, she had shifted down to rest her forehead against Jaskier’s shoulder, a hand curled around his limp arm.

The little Witcher girl stretched out in the bed beside Jaskier, Geralt shutting the door to the chamber behind them.

“Good morning, Lady Yennefer,” said Ciri. “You look like shit.”

“Ciri, don’t be rude,” huffed Geralt and came to sit in the chair at Jaskier’s bedside. He looked at the sleeping poet with a somber twist of his mouth.

“Don’t chastise her, Geralt. She’s only telling the truth.”

“Yeah, you do look like shit,” he said.

“So I’ve been told.”

“Coen says he convinced you to get some rest.”

“I did rest. It doesn’t help.”

“Nenneke will be by soon. Maybe she can give you something.”

“I’m afraid it’s unlikely,” said Yennefer, pushing herself up with a wince to lean against the headboard. She did not move her hand from Jaskier’s arm. “All that can be done to help us both is to undo this spell.”

“It’s gotten worse,” said Geralt, watching her struggle to rise. She could not say if Jaskier’s skin looked more sallow this morning, his undereye more bruised, the veining beneath his pale skin more pronounced. His skin felt chilled beneath the press of her fingers.

“Perhaps,” she said. She could blame the slight tremble of her chin as she looked down at him on her all-encompassing exhaustion. Ciri turned her face into the blankets snugged tight against Jaskier’s side and breathed deeply.

* * *

After her outburst that first night, Yennefer had rocked with Ciri in her arms for a long while, palms flat against the round of the girl’s shivering shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into her ash-blonde hair. “I’m no good at any of this. I’m sorry.”

Geralt had held tight to her shoulder, standing sentinel through the fit of pitiful crying and fussing. The old Yennefer would have felt nothing but shame and humiliation to be seen like this, to allow herself to weep at all, but as it was, she hung on tight, clinging to Ciri and rocking.

Ciri sobbed against her breast, mumbling snatches of words between bursts of sniffling.

“My fault,” she whispered. “ _My fault_ , my fault.”

“No,” growled Geralt, and Yennefer held tighter, rubbing her hands against the little back and trying, failing, to think of what comfort could be offered. She was not made for this. Not fated.

“Hush, daughter,” she had said and began to hum, lips pressed into the girl’s hair. At Geralt’s low huff, she remembered with a thrill of sardonic amusement that it was no lullaby but a drinking song, one of Jaskier’s of course, the only melody she could call to mind.

She had hummed it until the girl’s sobbing quieted, ignoring the lyrics about cavorting and passing out drunk. She thought of the last time she had seen Jaskier perform it, his carefree laughter and his brilliant silks.

* * *

Nenneke bent over the sleeping bard, the fabric of her cowl brushing his chest. She was a woman of indeterminate age, not having changed at all in the decades that Yennefer had known her. Though perhaps the old Yennefer had simply not paid her details much attention.

At the very least, her perpetual scowl was the same, deepening the wrinkles around her thin-lipped mouth.

There were others across the Continent, perhaps, who had greater skill in magical healing, had a deeper knowledge of the human mind. But Nenneke, being an old friend of Vesemir and someone Yennefer knew to be resistant to the Brotherhood’s meddling, seemed the only safe choice given the circumstances.

The fewer who knew about Ciri’s location and condition, the better.

Yennefer found herself swelling with a protective fire even imagining the girl among her old fellows. Someday soon, yes, Ciri would have to become an apprentice in order to master her still latent talents, but she seemed far too young still, too naive and unprepared. Nevermind that Yennefer had been younger when first swept off to Aretuza.

The priestess tapped Jaskier’s forehead with a bony finger. The bard’s slack expression did not waver.

“Hmm, we’ve tried that,” said Yennefer dryly. She had not bothered to waste the energy in moving from her place at Jaskier’s side, her eyes half-closed in a poor attempt at feigning boredom. “Poking him awake was one of the very first cures we attempted.”

“Hush, Yennefer,” said Nenneke. “Must you be such a difficult patient? Had I not treated Geralt in the past, I would say you were the most difficult.”

Geralt, who stood to observe along the far wall, crossed his arms and frowned with a low humph.

“I’m not the patient here,” said Yennefer.

“What ails him also is affecting you. We all can see it. You are bound together by--”

“Yes, yes, Destiny. Except it wasn’t _Destiny_. It was a wish made by a fool. A wish that’s now slowly killing the both of us.”

“It is not the bond itself causing this distress. It may well be the very depth of your emotional connection that has slowed the devastating effects of such corruption.”

“Are you going to examine him? Or simply yammer on for another age or two?” she huffed. “You told us earlier that you were no expert on djinn magic. You certainly speak like you think yourself an expert.”

“An expert on djinn magic, no,” said Nenneke, crows’ feet wrinkling around her shrewd eyes. “But of love, I can say I am well-studied.”

Against the wall, Geralt chuckled under his breath, and Yennefer glared at him.

“You may need to return to your books on that front,” she said.

“Lie still, my child,” said the priestess. “That’s quite enough bellyaching.”

Yennefer obeyed if only because the room would not cease its dizzy spinning. She fully closed her heavy eyes, the lull of Nenneke and Geralt’s voices following her into sleep.

* * *

She woke in Cidaris in the spare room above the Moistened Clam, afternoon light streaming into the bed. The poet sprawled naked on his back in a pool of sunlight, eyes half-closed and smile warming his lips, one thigh hitched up and a sheet cheekily positioned over his groin.

Yennefer reached to tug it down.

“Oh I see,” said Jaskier, his throat bobbing, a hum rising in his chest. “It’s to be that sort of dream sequence, then.”

“This isn’t a dream. Not really.”

“Dearest Yennefer, do you mean to say that you don’t dream of finding me naked in your bed? I should take deep offense to that.”

He did not look particularly offended. He rolled languidly onto his belly and stretched, the plane of his back flexing as he lifted his arms to grip a lumpy pillow and press his face into it, a cheeky eyebrow raised as he looked back at her.

“Who’s to say this isn’t your dream?” she asked, helpless to do anything but slot herself between his legs, nudging behind one knee until he crooked it up to make space for her. She cupped a palm around the round globe of his backside, fingers trailing through the downy hair there.

“You. Just now.”

“Yes, it’s no dream. I’ve slipped inside your mind.”

Jaskier stretched and pressed back into her touch, luxuriating in her attention.

“Nothing you haven’t done before, eh?”

“Not as much as I should have,” said Yennefer. “I may have seen the truth of your foolish wish much sooner.”

“And I should have shared that truth openly,” said Jaskier. His voice scratched, half-muffled by the pillows. “But come now, don’t think about that. Allow a dying man one last naughty dream with a beautiful woman.”

He wriggled back into her hand, her thumb pressing against him right where he wanted it. She moved on instinct, a whispered incantation slicking the digit as she slipped inside him, rubbing. His muscles gave easily to her, mouth open on a sigh.

“You’re not dying,” she said, even as she curled her thumb down.

“Oh, but you’re certainly killing me right now, Yennefer,” he groaned.

“Don’t joke about it.” She smacked her free hand sharply against his ass. He groaned with more exaggerated fervor. “You and your death wish. You’re not dying.”

“Do you have a plan?” he asked.

Her thumb rubbed careful circles inside him.

“We’re talking about this? Right now?”

“When else would we talk about it?”

“How do you manage to be this intolerable even while unconscious?”

“You seem to be tolerating me well enough.”

He whined when she withdrew her hand, a noise that quieted when she leaned over his body to press a dry kiss between his freckled shoulderblades.

“I will not let you die,” Yennefer said. “That’s the plan.”

Feeling as though they belonged to someone else, her hands slipped up his waist, along the frets of his ribs and back down to slot her thumbs into the dimples at the base of his spine. He felt sun-warmed to the touch. He breathed a sigh into the pillows.

She had not touched him like this in a long time and did not desire to stop.

“I trust that you’ll come up with something more definitive than that,” he said, looking back at her over his shoulder, and what she heard was _I trust you_.

“We undo the wish,” said Yennefer, “and hope that is enough.”

“Sounds simple.”

“It’s not.”

“I know.”

Jaskier had a peculiar-shaped mole along the knobs of his spine, halfway down the expanse of his back, and something about finding it there right where it had always been inspired a hot well of emotion to rise in her. She blinked back the heat that pricked the corners of her eyes and kissed him there, unable to hide her tremble.

“I will undo the wish,” she said. “Though incompetent fool that you are, you’re likely to get right back into trouble the moment I do.”

“I wish that we could stay here for a while longer, Yen. Eh, maybe forever.”

It was a trite and shallow line that should not have warmed her so thoroughly. His voice was rough and low and cracking. His body flexed beneath her as she lay across him, familiar as anything. A comfort.

“No more foolish wishes,” she said against the nape of his neck.

“No promises,” said Jaskier.

She savored the cadence of his voice as the scene slipped away from her.

In the hush of the bedchamber in the Witchers’ keep, her poet lay still and cold.

38

Past midday, Geralt pushed open the heavy door of the bedchamber, balancing a tray laden with a crock of stew and a loaf of dark bread. Yennefer squinted blearily into the brightness. She was certain it had been full dark a blink ago.

“You missed lunch.”

“I’ve never eaten lunch with you before,” she said. Before, which felt like an entire age ago now, she had kept to her own schedule, only sharing supper with the Witchers and even then, holding to the outskirts of the great hall, disconnected from their rowdy and jubilant feasting.

“Well,” said Geralt, “brought you lunch.”

“I could have fetched my own lunch.”

“You’re hardly in any sort of state to--”

“I can walk fifty paces to the kitchens and--”

“Eat the _fucking_ stew, Yennefer,” said the Witcher as he thrust the tray onto the bed. No small amount of stew slopped over the rim of the bowl.

Yennefer ate the fucking stew with minimal grumbling, tearing off a piece of bread to mop at the spilled liquid.

“Have Vesemir and Nenneke made progress?” she asked when she pushed the bowl away. She had not managed to swallow down much, nausea rising. Geralt set aside the tray with a frown.

“Don’t concern yourself with that.”

“I’m not _concerned_ ,” said Yennefer. “I’m impatient.”

“I realize.”

“I’m tired of this bed,” she said. “I’m tired of waiting around and being waited on. I’m tired of--” _watching him die, slipping into his memories, feeling how inevitable it all is, knowing that if I was the one with the wishes I would--_ “I’m tired.”

“I know,” said Geralt. His jaw tightened when he looked at the prone figure in the bed, and Yennefer grimaced. She had known the bard hardly a handful of years and been allowed to moan and gripe about all pf this while his oldest friend suffered his impending loss in silence.

Yennefer reached for him, tugged until he sat beside her instead of his awkward loom.

“He will be fine,” she managed, holding tight to the Witcher’s sleeve, no good at comfort, no pretty words left if she had had any to start. “Will probably wake up in the middle of an inane rant. Continue on being an imbecile like nothing ever happened.”

Geralt settled beside her, the breadth of his body not allowing for anything but an awkward perch against the edge of the bed, one leg against hers and the other braced on the floor. His too-big hands enveloped her, and she turned her pinched face into his chest. She shrank beside him, utterly minuscule.

“Yeah,” he breathed.

“He will wake,” said Yennefer. “He’ll be--”

The Witcher held her as she collapsed in on herself, as her breath gave way to weeping.

* * *

“The djinn bond cannot be broken,” said Nenneke, sitting pin-straight in a chair in the bedchamber, her hands folded in her lap. There were others in the room: Geralt, Vesemir, Coen maybe, but Yennefer found it difficult to force the details to coalesce into an image that made sense. Someone had a hand resting on her shoulder, thumb stroking idle circles.

Yennefer blinked at Nenneke from the bed.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, struggling to lift her head, to still the spinning of her surroundings. Her muscles ached with strain despite her days of doing no more than sitting in bed. “You’ve really given up that easily? I called you here for your skills in magical healing, not to--”

“I called her here, Yennefer. Allow the Honorable Mother to explain,” said Vesemir, his face deeply-creased with worry. The old priestess and the old Witcher had spent many long days in the library together delving into research. Pink rose in Nenneke’s round cheeks.

“Melitele help me,” the priestess muttered under her breath.

“Please,” said Yennefer and hated the way the crack of her weary voice made her sound horribly desperate. She was so very tired. “Please explain, Nenneke.”

“The bond cannot be severed. It is too deeply intertwined among your major organs, within your mind,” said Nenneke and raised a hand to head off Yennefer’s protests that there had to be _something_. She could not just lie here in bed any longer as the hours ticked away, as her life drained from her, as the poet faded to a corpse before her eyes. “It cannot be severed, but it can be unraveled.”

“How?” Yennefer meant it as a commanding bark, but it diminished to a croak. The walls of the room swirled, seeming filled with mist. Sand grated at the corners of her eyes. Jaskier’s skin burned cold as ice under her trembling fingers.

Genies were vanishingly rare and the magic to harness them mostly lost to time. Most other beings who could unwind the threads of fate had long gone extinct. Yennefer had considered finding one already, of course she had, but her search had been fruitless. She meant to say so but coughed weakly instead.

“A quest,” said Vesemir, but his voice echoed away from her.

“How noble,” she muttered.

Voices rose in discussion around her. Vesemir’s growl, Nenneke’s commanding tones, Geralt’s quiet timbre.

She meant to stay awake and listen.

Waves of weariness rushed over her head and swallowed her.

* * *

She woke in Caingorn in her tent as the red light of dawn spilled in through the half-parted flap. The poet lay in her arms, her body slotted behind him and nose in his messy hair, her hand spread across his belly.

“I returned here so many times,” he said, breath hitching. “To this moment. Thinking how I could have done it differently.”

“Too little, too late,” she breathed into his hair. “You had already lied to me for years. It would have happened the same way.”

“I could have distracted you from my betrayal with my sensual wiles,” he said.

“You could have tried,” said Yennefer, “and failed miserably.”

“I’ll have you know my wiles can be tremendously convincing.”

“Sure,” she said and slipped her hand lower to cup his hardening erection.

“See? I told you so.”

“I haven’t been convinced of anything.”

“Oh, you will be.”

Jaskier rolled his hips into the circle of her fingers, not bothering to bite back a wanton groan.

“We’re dying,” she said. “Can’t you manage a little decorum?”

“Never,” said Jaskier and gasped his pleasure as she touched him. Held her hand against him with the sure sense that the heat of his body could blister and sear her stroking fingerpads if she let it.

Yennefer hated how dearly she missed him. She missed him even while tangled together in a dream that was not a dream.

She could feel the tangled cords of the bond, pulsing and restrictive.

“You’ll solve this. I trust you. And I swore to love you afterward,” he said. “Can you swear the same?”

“I will not cast my chains aside only to tighten them around myself again.”

“Yen,” said Jaskier, sweetly, gently. Their tether wrapped tight around the swell of their ribcages, her chest to his back, hearts stuttering in time. How melodramatic. How maudlin. “A binding you choose is not a prison. A promise is not a chain. It doesn’t have to be.”

“You’re not speaking sense, poet,” Yennefer gasped into his chest.

“In Rinde, I wished that you would get what you wanted,” said Jaskier. “I would make that wish again, even after all of this.”

“I don’t know what I want,” slurred Yennefer, breath stilted, their bonds tightening with an increasing pressure. “It doesn’t fucking matter. I don’t know what I want.”

She clasped his hand.

Their little fingers twisted one over the other.

* * *

Yennefer woke to the flicker of candleflame.

Cold stone pressed against her knees and forehead. She was kneeling, slumped forward. A ritual circle surrounded her, candles wavering in the blackness. The symbol that she knelt on blurred into focus.

 _An amphora_ , she thought.

Someone beyond the circle was intoning something repetitive and lyrical.

A summoning. A chanted plea.

She moaned against the dusty floor as the dark rose up again.

39

She stood on a flat plane, her breathing easy and her body unburdened.

Verdant hills rolled away from her, a burnt path wending among them, and at the crown of the tallest hill stood a tower, black as a scar against the white horizon.

She stood at the shoulder of a black and white horse, one she recognized as the mare that the poet had ridden along the Trail to Kaer Morhen.

“Hello, Trout,” said Yennefer, patting the piebald neck, and the mare’s black whiskers tickled the crook of her arm. She wore bracers on her forearms, intricate patterns stamped into the dark leather. Looking down at herself revealed a full set of dyed armor, black as ichor, swirled with silver thread, etched with runes.

Trout was similarly-outfitted, all gleaming tack and pomp and ceremony. Silver tassels hung from her ornate breast collar and saddlepad and crupper, the shamfron face plating that ended over her delicate nasal bridge swooping with embossed detail.

The mare nudged her and blinked her wet, brown eyes.

A distant part of her knew that she still hovered close to death, that her body bent forward in a ritual circle, the flames leaping higher around her.

But here, her limbs moved easily, and her muscles flexed with newfound vigor.

She slung herself into the horse’s saddle and only then noticed the sword slung about her hip, its weight bumping her thigh. She and the horse were outfitted for battle.

“A noble quest,” she muttered under her breath as she grabbed up the braided reins and spurred the horse on.

Someone or something out there had a sense of humor.

* * *

Trout leapt to a gallop along the browned path, following the rise of the hills. The landscape flickered on the verge of too bright, too green, too smooth, and the tower loomed.

A black sea bubbled like tar along the round of the horizon, lapping higher, spilling through the rippling valleys.

The horse’s hooves thundered and echoed.

Yennefer rode on.

* * *

The horse reached the base of the tower. It took both far longer than it should have and no time at all.

The crooked, crumbling thing seemed held together by hops vines and climbing roses, blooming dark as wine.

The poet leaned over the ledge of a window high above. He waggled his fingers in greeting.

“Oh, that looks very nice on you,” he crooned, peering down at her. “Quite dashing.”

“Shut it,” said Yennefer.

Trout strained her head to grab at tufts of grass, and she dropped the reins to allow it, slipping from the saddle.

* * *

She reached for the twisting vines at the base of the tower, meaning to struggle to climb up them and stood suddenly in a circular room, a curved window looking out over rolling, green hills, sheer curtains billowing around the bed at the room’s center.

The poet lay atop the mattress, his eyelids twitching with dreams.

“This isn’t very funny,” said Yennefer.

She had been told these stories as a girl, young and crooked in her mother’s arms. A brave knight and a maiden imprisoned in a tower. An endless sleep interrupted only by the arrival of a questing stranger. Bonds of Destiny, fated meetings, true love’s kiss.

“It’s horseshit,” she said to no one in particular.

* * *

A fell wind whistled along the tower and through it.

A shadow blocked out the light that streamed through the window.

A leathery wing, sunlight glowing on golden scales.

The figure of Borch Three Jackdaws stepped from the shadows to meet her, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Hello, Yennefer of Vengerberg,” said the dragon.

Yennefer blinked down at the silver sword stretched before her, hands clenched around the hilt. She could not recall drawing it from its sheath.

A knight and a dragon. How fucking cliche.

* * *

“This was you? All of this?”

“I apologize for the theatrics,” said Three Jackdaws. “I am very old. I have little left to entertain myself with.”

“Piss off.”

“Hmm. I suppose I will leave you tethered then.”

The dragon began to turn aside, and entirely without her permission, her body surged forward, pressing the silver tip of the sword between his shoulderblades. She felt as distant from her own movements as if directed by some shadowy puppeteer.

Yennefer felt more than heard Three Jackdaw’s laughter.

* * *

“What is this?” she asked.

The dragon shifted, claws curling around the blade of her sword.

“A quest. A dream. An answer to a summons.”

“Nenneke summoned you?”

“Yes. And no. I have been waiting.”

* * *

“The poet once asked me to undo the wish,” said the dragon.

“And you did not?”

“Your story had not yet reached its zenith.”

“Our-- This isn’t some fairytale. This isn’t a story.”

Three Jackdaws grinned, his smile sharp and full of teeth.

“To beings like me, all mortals become stories. Especially those as deeply entangled in the net of fate as you and your poet, Yennefer of Vengerberg.”

“Undo it,” said Yennefer. “Undo it now, dragon.”

“Very well,” said Three Jackdaws.

* * *

The dragon touched a hooked claw to her furrowed brow.

* * *

“A connection like this does not unravel in a sequential manner. It is woven through the fabric of your life in its entirety. The very imprints and omens you two bore witness to in these past years are afterimages of this moment.”

“Flotsam,” muttered Yennefer, dazed.

* * *

Her mind reeled.

Some part of her lay prone on the stone floor of Kaer Morhen. Some part of her reclined in Novigrad, watching the sky pink with evening over the rooftops. She kneeled in Cidaris under the stars. She hunched on the cusp of a mountainside. She leaned on the brink of a pier.

Beside her, in every recollection, the poet loomed.

The noose that bound them went taut around their throats.

And then loosened.

* * *

“What of the creature that poisoned the bond? The voice? The child?”

Yennefer pressed her sweat-slick forehead to chilled stone. Candleflame blazed around her.

Yennefer stood tall, armor gleaming and dark curls billowing in the wind that swept a verdant plane. Her sword lifted to strike the towering beast before her.

The behemoth leered, its wings stretched horizon to horizon, its claws sinking into the black muck of the tide.

“You will learn the truth in time. These things will come to pass,” spoke the dragon. “But those events are part of a different story. This chapter must end first. Do not concern yourself with any of that.”

“Show me!” she bellowed and braced against the gale that struck her, carving an arc with the silver sword.

* * *

For a blink, the stars above pivoted beneath her. There was the sound of a cavalry march, the high-pitched scream of distressed horses, the holler of soldiers, the clash of weaponry.

Blinding portals swelled and burst.

Yennefer was in the rain that fell on a parched desert. A flash of lightning blinded her.

The future she glimpsed was at first dark and terrible and then summer-colored and saccharine.

The stars pivoted.

“Do not concern yourself with these things,” the dragon’s voice boomed. “Not yet. Not yet, child.”

* * *

“Undo it,” she said and floundered and struck, her sword piercing the creature’s golden scales. “Undo it.”

“It is already done. As it always was.”

She burned with delirium.

She was both the knight and the slain dragon.

She was the bruised clouds, the stars, the sea.

“Awake, Yennefer. Awake and make your choice.”


	11. part nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** for tenderness, gooeiness, self-indulgent wish fulfillment, ambiguous and infamous Kaer Morhen hot springs, and hot missionary sex
> 
> thanks for the journey, folks. it's been real.

40

Jaskier woke.

Blinking open his sleep-crusted eyes, he glimpsed sunlight on stone, a narrow window with a square of blue sky, a cobwebbed ceiling.

His mouth tasted as though a foul creature had died in it, his teeth fuzzy when his tongue swept across them.

He had had a very strange procession of dreams.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” spoke a gravelly voice beside him, someone nudging at his shoulder, “you gonna sleep in all morning?”

Turning his head was a harder effort than expected, but there was Geralt, hovering over him, loose-haired and tired, and behind him, Lambert, who was the bastard doing the nudging.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” slurred Jaskier wearily, swatting away the finger poking his ribs. He had barely braced to shift his uncooperative body upright when a weight sank against his chest in a blur of ash-blonde hair.

“Ciri, don’t smother the man,” said Geralt in a tone of voice that sounded like he would pick the girl up by the scruff of the neck like a recalcitrant wolf pup if he could.

He was all gentle sternness with her, and it warmed Jaskier’s heart straight through. He nearly opened his mouth to vocalize something like this, saying _oh Geralt, your fatherly instincts set my heart aflutter_ , when he realized that his chest was becoming decidedly damp, the girl’s shoulders shivering with silent tears.

“Oh, little one,” said Jaskier, curling his arms instinctively around her. “Oh hush, daughter, don’t cry now. All is well.”

A worried glance around the room found it much fuller than he had initially realized. Eskel and Coen leaned against opposite bedposts, the latter openly blinking back tears of his own. Vesemir stood cross-armed beside a woman that he recognized with a jolt only for the little tug of guilt over perceived wrong-doing that all priestesses immediately inspired in him.

It was Nenneke, High Priestess and accomplished healer, who was usually not one to voluntarily remain longer than necessary in a room that he occupied. That her thin-lipped scowl was not present and she held her habit bunched in the nervous twist of her hands, grey braids frizzed about her head, meant that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

“What happened?” he asked, and Ciri began to whimper in his arms.

“You almost died,” said Geralt.

“Oh,” said Jaskier, “that explains the aches and pains, I suppose. And the weeping. Red-rimmed is a good look for you, Lambert. Really brings out your eyes.”

“Shit, we hoped you’d wake up a mute.”

Geralt knocked Lambert in the shoulder.

“So, I assume I’m likely to live, then? Or have you woken me to voice my final words? Oh, I’ve had them prepared for ages. Lots of pressure put on us poets as far as last words go. I have them clearly penned in my notes. There was really no need to wake me. This isn’t exactly the audience I’d want for my ideal deathbed recitation anyway. Uncultured lot of you. Please, when you give the biographer your account of my final hours, tell them I reclined in the laps of naked maidens, plucking at golden harps cradling in their arms and uttering sorrowful lamentations to the heavens. You’ll want to synchronize your stories now in case of--”

“I’ve changed my mind,” grumbled a soft voice close beside him, effectively startling him quiet, “put him back into the coma. For the sake of our eardrums and sanity.”

In his initial scan of the room, he had not noticed the woman who lay close beside him in the four-poster bed, likely for the mound of quilts and furs that swallowed her, tucked right up to her chin. Dark hair tangled in a mussed halo across the pillows and violet eyes squinted out from the mess of blankets, deep shadows carved beneath them.

“Oh,” he said, thinking how small she looked, how pale. “Good morning, Yennefer. You look terrible.”

“What a way with words. Truly, poet. Astounding.”

“Something very bad happened?” Jaskier asked.

He racked his brain trying to recall any details and could only pull out bits and pieces that made no practical sense.

Candleflame. A thunderstorm. Sunlight glittering on golden scales. His lovely horse, Trout, in gleaming armor.

Come to think of it, the air in the room did smell faintly of smoke and ritual incense.

Nenneke moved to loom over their bedside in a rustle of her skirts, starting to prod and poke at the both of them with little _hmms_ and _ahhhs_. Yennefer groaned and shoved aside some of the furs along with the old woman’s bony fingers. She was naked beneath them, looking more gaunt through the ribs and collarbones than he remembered.

“What happened?” he asked again, because no one seemed intent on actually answering him in a timely manner. The girl in his arms had stopped her shaking and sobbing and lay still against his chest as his fingers combed absent-mindedly through her pale locks.

“It was my fault,” said Ciri, so small and caught on the end of a whimper that Jaskier rushed to deny it without knowing what had occurred, a hum of _no, no, hush_ against her scalp.

Yennefer, thankfully, was quick to put him out of his misery.

“There was… an incident with Ciri,” she said. Her eyes remained closed as she spoke, chin tipped up, the pillows cupping her head. He took the opportunity to look and look deeply as he had not in weeks or longer, in what felt like years. The others in the room faded out and may have ceased to exist for all he was aware. “She suffered an episode that adversely affected the connection between us. You fell into a deep sleep that nothing could wake you from. The both of us began to waste away.”

“Oh,” said Jaskier, considering the faint freckles on her nose, the smooth line of her brow, the faint color in her cheeks, “that sounds fairly morbid. A touch romantic. Hmm, was it romantic?”

Yennefer snorted and cracked an eye.

“You’re insufferable,” she said and turned to look at Nenneke who was still managing the occasional hum and errant prod at their prone bodies. “Can’t we put him under again? Just until my head stops aching.”

“How long was I out?” asked Jaskier. “I don’t feel very well-rested.”

“Five days,” said Geralt. He looked as though he had not slept a single one of them.

“Hmm and what would you say, Geralt? Was it suitably romantic?”

“No.”

“You’re no fun. I bet you would have told my biographer that I died cold and alone in bed in the dead of winter. So much for our years of friendship, Geralt.”

“Never alone,” Geralt grumbled, and something in his voice gave Jaskier pause. He considered the Witchers gathered at his bedside, the girl huddled in his arms, the exhausted woman lying beside him with her eyes closed once more.

“I really almost snuffed it,” he said airily, settling back to stare at the dusty ceiling. “Huh.”

“Almost being the operative word,” said Nenneke, clucking her tongue as she leaned back from her examination, hands on hips. “With some rest, you will recover quickly. Possible vertigo for the next day or so, but there may not be any lasting effects.”

“Thank you, Nenneke,” Yennefer managed.

“Mmmmm,” the priestess said, shaking her head with pursed lips, “you did the brunt of it, my dear. Now--” she clapped her hands with a surety that startled the gathered Witchers, “--let’s leave them to rest now. Out, out! Go find something else to gawk at. I’m sure you have floors to sweep and swords to polish. Out!”

The room cleared of shuffling Witchers. Lambert leaned to ruffle his hair, Coen’s hand lingered on his raised knee, Vesemir nodded, and Eskel offered a wave. Geralt extracted the little Witcher girl and scooped her into his arms, giving a last squeeze to Jaskier’s shoulders and a glance at Yennefer before he vacated the room as well.

Left alone with Yennefer in bed, the silence audibly hummed.

Something had changed, he felt, but he could not pinpoint the source of the feeling. Waking from a five day coma should perhaps have been more disorienting, but he felt an overarching sense of calm. He lay quietly on his back beside Yennefer, aware that it should feel more uncomfortable, perhaps awkward.

His grasp on the scope of passing time felt flimsy and tenuous.

How long had it been?

Five days in his coma.

Had it really been less than a month since he left the keeping of the Countess de Stael? He had delayed in reaching out in writing to Yennefer until it could be delayed no longer. His options dwindled to nothing. Geralt was missing or dead, the north under threat of war, and winter approaching.

Had it really been only a few short weeks since they set out toward the Blue Mountains? Their journey to Kaer Morhen had been tense and silent, and upon arrival, he had kept his distance as best he could. Distracted himself in old, familiar ways. Through song and drink and a warm body in his bed.

Had it really been just a week ago that he had tumbled with Coen in supply closet and alcove and hushed corner, delighting in the toned flex of the young Witcher’s muscle and sinew? Jaskier felt some regret in having used Coen in such a way. He was a good man and had been an attentive lover.

How long had it been?

A month since being unceremoniously reunited with Yennefer. A year and some months since the mountainside where it all went wrong. Over half a decade since their disastrous first meeting, since the djinn, since the manor house.

What had happened the five days that he slept?

The air in the room was warm and fragrant. He allowed his chest to expand and shift with deep, swelling breaths. He could hear Yennefer doing the same.

“What… um, what did you do exactly?” asked Jaskier finally.

He looked at her and found her looking back.

“What do you remember?” she asked, and he tried again to piece it all together.

“Remember? Just dreams,” he said. “I was asleep.”

“Not dreams,” said Yennefer.

Her hand snaked from under her mound of furs to touch his arm, a press of fingertips that inspired a swift uptick of his heart rate.

“Oh.”

He remembered dreams of her warm touch, bodies intertwined, promises uttered and truths confessed. A host of familiar settings, shared memories, details that blurred into one another. Her honeyed skin and bright eyes. The tangle of a pulsing cord tightening around their bodies.

“Not quite dreams,” Yennefer repeated.

He looked at her and had never seen a woman more beautiful. She looked like shit. She looked a blink away from death.

And yet.

He realized, quite abruptly, what had changed.

He could no longer pull at the thread that bound them, a strange lurch of a feeling like a phantom limb, attempting to flex a muscle that no longer existed.

“You did it, then,” he said. “You undid my wish.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Yennefer shuffled to look at him more directly, messy hair falling into her face. Without thought, he reached to press it behind her ear, his fingers trailing along the line of her jaw. That sense of strange calm deepened around him, though he knew anxiety would make sense here, confusion, discomfort.

Nothing mattered but this woman. Not a single thing.

“And how do you feel?” he asked, voice cracking a little with more than disuse. Jaskier knew well enough how he felt. Quiet and peaceful and full of an affectionate thrum of acknowledgement that he could lie by this woman’s side for another age.

Yennefer’s violet eyes searched and dissected him, and he felt a familiar prickle along his scalp that signalled she was probing inside his head. He allowed it, open to her, a soft and tired smile on his lips. He did his best to project the things that he was feeling, the contentment, the warmth.

He still loved her the same ways that he had, as he had known he would, as he had sworn to her that he would.

Of course he did. Of course.

Yennefer, vulnerable beside him. Yennefer, strained and weary and small.

She seemed to find what she was looking for and drew back, and at once, he missed the restless feeling of her rifling through his thoughts. The tender spot in his mind where the bond must have been tethered ached like a pulled tooth.

“Hmm,” Yennefer hummed, still looking at him, still searching. “It’s not how I thought it would be.”

“And how’s that?”

The hand that touched his arm tightened and prodded with an extended finger. He peered down. Her pinky, nudging into the meat of his upper arm. When he looked to meet her eyes again, it was to the sight of her echoing his soft smile.

“It’s the same as it was,” said Yennefer, her own voice catching in her throat. “It’s the very same.”

Jaskier fumbled to grasp her little finger in his and bring their lips together.

He kissed her, deep and whole and untroubled, and kissed her once more.

41

“So, Nenneke did a very ominous magic ritual?”

“Yes.”

“With candles? Runes? Chanting?”

“Yes.”

“To summon… a dragon?”

“No. Yes. Unintentionally. To summon a being capable of what we needed.”

“Three Jackdaws.”

“Yes.”

“That damn dragon. I very politely requested his help after-- well, you were there, you know. After all of that. On the mountain. And he quite rudely declined.”

“Mmmm, he said as much.”

“And he was what? Biding his time? The nerve!”

“Yes, yes.”

“I’m grateful to him though. Of course I am. I’m grateful.”

“Greatly full of something. Quit it, _quit_ , your nose is horribly pointy. Quit stabbing me with it. That’s my eye socket, Jaskier. Would you quit--”

“No. I don’t think I will. I think I’ll continue to kiss you as much as you deserve. I have a great many kisses shored up in reserve. A veritable trove. A dragon’s hoard, you might say. Though hmmm that doesn’t sound quite right, does it? Given our recent run-in with a dragon. Nevermind then. Nevermind. A healthy store of--”

Yennefer quieted him with a kiss, her lips dry and chapped against his and her scent lilac-sweet.

“Mmmm,” she hummed against his mouth. “Sweet silence.”

“Don’t play coy, Yen. You love my noise. You love me.”

“Coy?” She arched a dark eyebrow.

“Alright, maybe not that, but I didn’t hear a denial, hmmm?”

“Regretfully.”

“Oh, you love me?”

“Very regretfully.”

It was simple, more simple than it should have been. The chatter and bickering and easy embraces.

Jaskier knew the simplicity could not possibly remain, but he pushed such a consideration easily aside. For all the words spoken in dreams that were not dreams, for all the gestures now that meant more than words, there were complicated discussions still to have. There would be time for them, for all of it.

There would be time.

* * *

The two of them were left alone well into the morning, or at least what Jaskier assumed was morning given the slow, shifting march of sunlight across the walls. It must have been sometime just past dawn when he awoke, because the room was brighter now and warmer.

Jaskier lay with his head against Yennefer’s chest, arms settled on her waist, furs and quilts piled around their naked bodies. In this position, he could hear the steady thump of her heartbeat as she trailed her fingers along his scalp.

The sound of the chamber door opening did not inspire him to move from his comfortable position.

“Go away, we’re sleeping,” said Jaskier, muffled by Yennefer’s breasts.

“You slept for five days. Not enough for you?”

It was Geralt.

The smell of fresh-baked bread and savory stew sharply reminded Jaskier of how very long it had been since he had eaten anything.

He shoved himself up, haphazardly pushing aside the blankets. Yennefer pulled one of the quilts more tightly around her shoulders but did not fully cover herself.

“Nevermind, nevermind, hand over the goods. I’m fucking famished. I’m dying here.”

Geralt stood holding a silver tray crowded with several crocks of stew and a dark loaf of bread. He looked as though he had taken a nap. Maybe combed his hair. Jaskier felt a surge of affection for the Witcher.

“Lunch,” he said simply and plunked the tray onto the bedside table.

“Come here,” said Jaskier, gesturing his arms wide for a hug.

Geralt wrinkled his nose but sat down hard on the edge of the bed and tugged him forward into an embrace. Excellent huggers, Witchers. A pity so few mortals allowed themselves the opportunity to appreciate it.

“You reek,” he said into the crook of his neck, “and you’re naked.”

“Haven’t had much of a chance to bathe recently on account of nearly wasting away to nothing in a magical coma. Also, I can’t personally be blamed for apparently being undressed in my sleep. In the depths of my magical coma, that is.”

Geralt grunted against his shoulder.

Yennefer, meanwhile, stretched around him to nab and dig into one of the bowls of steaming stew. She did not seem concerned with being mostly naked around Geralt, but then again, he had witnessed far more intimate parts of her.

Geralt pulled back to wrap his hands around his own bowl, nudging the other toward Jaskier. He looked pointedly between the two of them and then at the spot where their hips pressed snug together beneath the blankets.

“You speaking to each other again?”

“Only in tongues.”

Yennefer pinched him. He jerked away and narrowly avoided spilling stew on Geralt’s lap.

“Good,” said Geralt. “Was getting annoying.”

“Him? Annoying?” Yennefer blinked in an approximation of disbelief as she tore a piece from the loaf of bread and popped it in her mouth. “I can scarcely believe it.”

“You too, Vengerberg,” grunted Geralt. “It’s clear that you two are--” he gestured vaguely, a quick flick of a hand that Jaskier realized with a fond sinking warmth in his chest had likely been adapted from his own mannerisms, “--good together. More relaxed. Meant for each other. Or something.”

“Oh like destined, hmm?”

At the Witcher’s stricken expression, Yennefer laughed. It was a nice, easy sound. Lyrical.

“Shit,” said Geralt. “Poor choice of words.”

“No, it’s alright,” said Yennefer, and there was something so strange and gentle in her voice that Jaskier forgot to breathe. “There are some fates that we choose. That define us.”

The Witcher and the mage shared a private smile.

“Right,” said Jaskier, unable to keep from grinning at the both of them. “Now is there any chance I could get some ale, good kitchen wench? Chop, chop! I’m parched. I’m dying of thirst. I have been languishing in a magical coma and have not had a drop to drink in-- _ouch_ , you witch, you vile thing, why must your nails be so very-- _fuck_.”

* * *

Ciri burst through the door in a stream of energy not long after their empty bowls were stacked together on the tray, dressed in armor and scuffed with dirt from the training field.

“Oof,” said Jaskier as she struck his chest, seeming intent on squeezing the air from his lungs. “You stink, you little rat.”

“You stink worse,” said Ciri, leaning back with such a perfect replication of Geralt’s earlier nose wrinkle that Jaskier could not hold back a bark of laughter.

“I could do with a trip to the baths,” said Jaskier. “All of us could.”

“That could be arranged,” said Geralt.

Said arrangements involved rising from bed and dressing, which Jaskier found mostly redundant given their intent on undressing again as soon as they reached the cavernous hot springs below Kaer Morhen.

He rose with an easy stretch, wincing at the painful twinge of sore muscles, but Yennefer seemed to find rising more difficult, her muscles trembling. Nenneke had said she had done the brunt of it to save them -- whatever it was she had done. She did not seem physically injured at the very least.

Slipping into the white shift that Geralt laid out for her, she wavered as she straightened up and would have stumbled had Jaskier not hurried forward to catch her around the shoulders.

“I’m fine,” she insisted but allowed the sweep of his palm between her shoulderblades. It was not often that Jaskier noticed their difference in height, but he noticed it now, his hand feeling impossibly broad on her narrow back.

“I know,” he said and did not challenge her lie.

* * *

Jaskier took a moment to reorient himself as he stepped from the bedchamber. The towering ceilings of a passageway just off the great hall swept above him. He hadn’t realized there even were bedchambers so close to the central areas of the keep, his own room sequestered in the belly of the fortress, but then, perhaps this room had been repurposed for its warm air and proximity.

The hot springs, of course, were not close by, nestled deep within the mountain Kaer Morhen had been built into.

On their slow trek down to the baths, Geralt stayed close enough to snatch Yennefer up in his arms when she inevitably sagged against a wall. She grumbled some half-hearted objections, kicking him only once or twice before allowing it, tucking her body against his chest.

As they resumed their tedious progress down yet another flight of worn stairs, Jaskier touched the smooth skin of Yennefer’s extended ankle in a show of comfort. She promptly made attempts at kicking him in the face which Jaskier dodged spryly, sidling behind the Witcher’s back.

She laughed suddenly, head tipped back over Geralt’s bicep, dark hair swinging. Ciri, who had jogged ahead, popped back up the next staircase to holler at them to hurry it up. Jaskier caught Yennefer’s foot again and tickled the sole.

“Carry me, bathing wench,” said Yennefer, thumping Geralt’s chest with a closed fist. “Make haste for the baths.”

Geralt grunted past the twitching smile on his lips and Ciri hollered again and Jaskier squeaked as Yennefer’s toe caught him in the cheek and Yennefer laughed like he had never heard her laugh before.

How simple it was.

He allowed the comfortable, familial ease of the moment to rise and swell over him, settling into it as he did the hot springs a short while later, the feeling soothing as deeply as hot water.

* * *

He had had ample opportunity since his arrival weeks before to luxuriate in the spring-fed baths nestled in a natural cavern deep in the belly of the mountains, which were, as far as Jaskier was concerned, the crown jewel of Kaer Morhen.

But to sink into the steaming water, just this side of too hot, was far more enjoyable now that his coils of anxiety and somber mood had eased. Whether he had absorbed unease through the bond from Yennefer’s own mental state or if the mood had been organic to himself, he could not say.

It felt strange.

To reach toward a familiar pocket within his own mind and find a void there. Empty. Nothing to tug at or follow. No imprints, no glimpses.

It was over. Truly over.

He had not asked initially how the baths worked and did not have the energy to ask now. Hot water flowed from pipes in the rough-hewn rock walls into a natural pool and smaller, carved troughs for less full body soaks. He floated on his back and listened to the warbled sounds of the world around him, his ears beneath the surface.

“Do you feel this?” he asked Yennefer, leaning against the edge of the pool. He watched Geralt coax a comb through the wet tangles of Ciri’s hair. The sight was so very heart-clenching and perfect that he wanted to sigh with pleasure over it, and so he did.

Yennefer’s eyes were closed, her head tipped back.

“Feel what?”

“Everything’s a little… saccharine,” he said. “Too relaxed. Wobbly around the edges. Like I’m looking at everything from underwater.”

“Side effect, maybe,” she said. “We endured a lot of strain on our minds. It will fade.”

“So, you do feel it?”

“Yes.”

“A very cozy magic hangover?”

“Something like that.”

“I don’t hate it.”

“Mmmm,” Yennefer hummed and allowed their shoulders to brush beneath the water. “Be a good bathing wench, and wash my hair.”

He obliged in doing so, snagging a hard wedge of soap from the edge of the pool and lathering it in his hands.

Her dark hair had grown long, brushing well past her shoulderblades, and the ordeal of the past week had left it knotted and unruly. It would take more than clumsy pulls of his fingers to work out the knots in the thick hair, so he focused instead on massaging a lather into her scalp, scratching gently with blunt fingernails.

She leaned into the feeling with a drawn-out hum, dipping low in the water until her back brushed just so against his chest. The steam from the warm bath lent a further hazy quality to his thoughts, and the heat soothed his strained, exhausted muscles. His fingers combed idly through the lather, the pungent scent of the oils in the soap suffusing the air.

When he bid her to dip beneath the water to rinse out the lather, she went willingly, half-floating. The intimacy of such a thing caught in his chest. He cupped his hand to keep the water from reaching her eyes and worked to scrub the soap free.

Her hair flowed loose and almost liquid around his body.

He longed to lose himself in the haze and warmth of her, and so, he did.

* * *

The slippery, honey-warm quality of the world lasted through a rousing supper shared with the Witchers. Jaskier deemed himself well enough to play a handful of songs before the fire and would have played more had his fingertips not gone numb and voice started to scratch.

He and Yennefer had been forbidden by Nenneke from drinking anything until more fully recovered, and they pouted over it together through the hearty meal, sides pressed flush on a bench not full enough to warrant such proximity.

Everything hummed and went velvet-soft, and he did not feel as sober as he was.

He ate from Yennefer’s fingers to colorful shouts and table poundings from the roughhousing Witchers.

He laughed until he cried and ate until he could burst and walked on unsteady legs until he reached the bedchamber where he had woken in the morning, prodded along by someone behind him.

The bedding was chilled against his flushed skin.

Yennefer’s body burned warm when he reached for her, and sleep rose easily to meet him as he pressed himself into the hollow of her arms.

42

Jaskier woke in the night to a vivid, cold clarity of mind.

He dragged in a pained breath, his throat aching, his eyes roving and caught sight of Yennefer leaning over him, her eyes open and forehead creased.

“There it is,” she said. “You’ve come down. You’re stabilizing.”

A cool hand pressed against his sweat-damp forehead.

“Magic hangover?”

“Your brain re-learning itself without the bond to anchor it,” said Yennefer. “What we did last night was like excising a tumor. Your system needs time to adjust.”

“My brain doesn’t know itself?”

“Our minds were knit together for nearly seven years by magic not even the most powerful mages on the Continent fully understood. Our brains adapted to the presence of the bond. There will be aftershocks.”

He considered this. Thought of the cocksure man he had been in Rinde when he encountered a violet-eyed mage in a stolen manor house. Thought of himself now, curled in bed beside the woman he loved.

“I know myself,” he said. He rolled to face her. “And I know you.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Just as well as I know myself.”

The woozy, too-warm quality of the world had faded and yet, he still saw her the same as he had in the glow of morning. She was good to look at, even weary and sickly, even making a face at him as he ducked to kiss her and missed, settling a wet smack of lips against her chin.

He produced no spoken truth of his knowledge of her as he once had, not rattling off facts or figures or accumulated details. He knew the hitch of her breath and the slight cross of her eyes and the shape of the cowlick at the back of her head. He knew her even when she was not rooted in his brain, even when he could not thumb the strings of their tether and follow it back to her.

He wiggled to his belly and pressed his knowledge into her skin. He kissed the cords of her neck and drew out a quick gasp, the dip of her collarbone where she was often ticklish, the shoulder that hitched a hair higher than the other, the corner of her mouth that pulled slightly down.

He kissed her on the flat of her sternum, between her parted breasts, and felt the visceral memory of their not-dreams, how their ribcages had cracked open and intertwined as one.

He kissed her on her quivering navel and did not resist blowing a quick burst of air against her belly. She arched beneath him and swore and huffed a laugh, and he did it again, knowing he could make her writhe and dig her fingers into his hair and threaten to knee him in the diaphragm.

He kissed her on the ridge of her pubic bone, nudging into wiry, dark hair, and on the dimpled skin of her inner thigh and on the heated warmth in the part of her legs. She was slick and soft under his lips and tongue and throbbed against his mouth, thighs tightening and relaxing, hand palming the crown of his head.

He kissed her where she opened to him and knew by the cadence of her sharpening breaths that it was good for her and endeavored to make it even better.

He did not know a sweeter sound than her pleased sighs and drawn-out moans. He savored the taste of her, holding her against his lips, and knew he would never tire of any of it. Not the tremble of her legs, the press of her heels into the meat of his back, the soft stroke of her fingertips along his cheekbones.

She smelled tart and sweet in turn, coppery on his tongue and tinged with an earthy flavor like dust after rain. A current seemed to run through her, summer heat lightning even in the seeping cold of winter.

He knew her gasps and tensing muscles that preluded the throbbing waves of her orgasm against the flat of his tongue. He knew how to bring her there again in another crest of fluttering heat and once more. He knew to draw away from the sensitive flesh after that, pressing a last, wet kiss to her belly before rolling aside, spreadeagle on the mattress and humming with contentment.

He listened to their breath settling, eyes closed, his arousal a floating and abstract thing, bouying him toward sleep. He expected to doze half-awake listening to the silence of the keep for a while and suddenly snap awake in the light of morning, fully-rested.

Jaskier did not expect the shift of the mattress and the stretch of her over his thighs as her weight settled atop him, the feather-light touch of her lips against his.

He blinked open his eyes and met hers, more black than violet in the dark room. Her features swam in the dim light, and he tipped up to kiss her again only to brush against her hairline rather than her lips. She shifted down his body, an echo of his own slow progress down hers.

Her fingers knew which of his ribs were most sensitive, inspiring a squirm and a huff. Knew the gasp that a tug through his chest hair would elicit. Her tongue flicked against the nub of his nipple, while her thumb and forefinger twisted the other, knowing he would respond with quickened breath, arching under her touch. She flexed her hips to rub her wet cunt against his thigh.

It was too much.

Her quiet, focused attention overwhelmed him at embarrassing speed.

Jaskier threw an arm across his face, gasping with breaths that stilted into near sobs as her lips touched the crease of his thigh.

“You’ve proven you know how to kill me at least,” he breathed, unable to keep his silence long.

“Far too easy,” she said, and her breath teased along his erection. For a moment, she did not shift to swallow him, did not touch him at all, and that, at least, was familiar. She waited until he squirmed beneath the slight brushes of her lips and ghosts of her breath to press a kiss under the flared head, the touch of her fingers as red-hot as a brand, the curl of her tongue eliciting a punched out whimper.

He had no way of knowing what she was thinking, what she planned. This had never been a part of their dynamic, this unspoken show of reciprocation. She took what she desired, and it was mere coincidence that that often aligned perfectly with what he did.

Not everything he desired, of course, but there were lines that they did not cross.

This was not a unique act, her lips stretched around his cock, fingers of one hand curled to stroke him and the other to tease the delicate skin of his balls. She had done this before, perhaps a dozen times over, but something about it now felt surreal and concentrated.

She touched him carefully and exactly, just as he had her, but the dark of the room was too complete to see her facial expression and his fumbling reach for the vanished swell of the bond nearly cast him into an empty space in his mind. He had never known what she was thinking, especially in the earliest days, but sometimes he could tug at the thread and guess.

A void rose up to meet him, and she flicked her tongue and hummed.

“Yen,” he gasped. “I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

And suddenly, he did.

 _I know you_ , she thought, the words projected like a physical touch along his body. His muscles jumped in reflex, and he felt rather than guessed at her appreciation of the sight. She hummed again, and he could taste himself, the salt and musk of him.

Yennefer dragged her fingers through the hair that swept across his navel, tugging at the soft curls. Her own breath hitched along with his, and she pulled away to sit back on her heels and look.

He saw himself in her eyes, lying with thighs spread, a red flush rising through his dark body hair, his hair askew on the pillows, eyes glazed, mouth parted.

 _Beautiful_ , she thought, the word a brush of pleasure in itself. He gasped against it and again when her lips touched his trembling belly to mouth the word there. Ending in a girlish squeak when her dark hair fell to tickle his sensitive sides.

 _Completely ridiculous_ , she thought and wiggled her fingers above the jut of his hipbone to hear him squeak again and twist in an involuntary attempt at escape.

“Not fair, not fair!” he gasped, though he had done the same to her. She stilled her hands flat and kissed the rise of his ribcage.

 _I know your weaknesses_ , she thought with an awful lot of smugness for someone whose weaknesses he knew in turn. She seemed content a moment to turn her head and rest her cheek against his chest. Listening to his heartbeat.

Five days he had been unconscious, wasting away. Had she wanted to do this those long days, dreading his heart rate’s slow fade?

A silence stretched as she lay tucked against him, the urgency of his arousal forgotten, his palms rising to flatten down her slender back. Their bodies fit snugly together, breathing in sync, each lift of his chest swelling in hers as well.

 _You have been worth knowing,_ she thought without preamble, and the emotional weight of it choked him. She felt his stuttering breath and chuckled and suddenly rolled away from him, lying on her back with her shoulder snug to his.

“Come here,” she said aloud and gestured at her lap, a quick pat of her palms that should have been silly but instead left him wide-eyed and short of breath. “Come here, you fool. Kiss me.”

He obeyed, rolling just as she had, straddling her and cupping her cheek to tip her face up and kiss her, kiss her in ways he had before and never had. He kissed her frantic and quick as he had on the floor of the wrecked manor house, and he kissed her slow and on the edge of tears as he had in her tent on the mountainside.

And he kissed her playfully, sweetly, gently and in ways he had always dreamed to and could have been happy with the night going on like that, her lips and his, their shared breath, nothing more to rush toward.

“Come here,” Yennefer mumbled into the kiss, and he did not immediately understand because he was here, he was already here and there and anywhere that she requested he be.

Her hand snuck down to palm between his legs, and she pressed his cock flat against her belly, inviting a roll of his hips down into the soft give of her body.

“Here,” she said, and he understood.

“Like this?” he asked as he adjusted, slipping his hands along the muscle of her thighs, her knees bent over the crook of his elbows, her body exposed as she lay beneath him. She had shared with him a glimpse of himself this way and hoped that she was looking through his eyes now.

Her dark hair spread in tangled curls behind her head, her honeyed body both soft and lean, her expression relaxed except for the little wrinkle between her brows.

“Come here,” she said again, the wrinkle deepening. “Quit gawking, and come here. Just like this. Kiss me.”

He kissed her first on her brow, feeling it further crease beneath his mouth as she huffed in impatience, and as he ducked to kiss a laugh against her lips, he shifted his hips forward to enter her in the same moment, her body slick and open to him.

The position was elementary, simple, unadventurous, the default among young wives and their callous husbands the Continent over, but it did not feel so as he moved within her. She had never allowed this, whether for the inherent vulnerability or lack of control or the symbolism of it, he could not say.

He kissed her, just as she had asked, until he could not deny himself any longer and pulled back, straightening up to look down at her beneath him.

He rose above her, arms bending to hold her legs steady, thighs flexing to meet her with rolling thrusts.

He rose above her, and Jaskier saw himself in her eyes, saw an echo of her above him borrowed from his own mind. They blurred around the edges, deeply confusing, seeping into one another until her thoughts were his thoughts, their memories and visions and shared sensations.

Pleasure exchanged and echoed and exchanged again. Ricocheting without end and with neither wanting it to end. A connection opened willingly.

* * *

In the aftermath, he sprawled against her chest, sweat cooling, body aching in very satisfying ways.

“Do you miss it?” he could not stop himself from asking. At the uncomprehending wrinkle of Yennefer’s brow, he tapped his temple.

“Do I miss being bound without my consent to the fates and life of a man who chooses to pair crimson and violet fabrics on a regular basis?”

“Well,” said Jaskier, spirits flagging, “when you put it that way.”

In the moonlight, she looked less fatigued than she had during the day, skin washed cool and smooth. He remembered, in what felt like another lifetime, thinking how she appeared as serene and untouchable as a statue, cold and timeless. He lay his head down against her breast, fingers spreading across each side of her ribcage to feel it expand and fall. To hold her as a living, changeable thing for the small moments that she allowed.

“I can be assured that my emotions are my own,” said Yennefer. “I do not suffer unbidden glimpses of you. The only future I am privy to is one that I carve out myself. I feel drawn to nothing that I do not choose of my own volition.”

“Yes,” he said, his lips moving against her skin. “I can see how that would be a relief.”

She trailed a ghost of fingertips down his spine and back up again.

“I do miss it,” she admitted, voice small, and pressed her lips into his hair.

“Oh.”

“But as I said before, it’s the very same. The same as it was,” said Yennefer. “My emotions are mine and still I find myself affected by your own. It’s no hardship to see glimpses of you. I cannot picture any future except one carved alongside yours. And I am drawn to this of my own free will. My choice.”

Jaskier forgot how to breathe.

“We could make a poet of you yet,” he said at last.

“Hmmm,” she hummed. “You wish.”


	12. postlude

The months marched on.

Spring loomed and broke over the mountains.

Together, the Witcher and the bard and the mage and the child rode out of Kaer Morhen.

The story progressed. A chapter turned.

The events that Yennefer foresaw beneath the beat of a dragon’s wing came to pass one after the other.

A war. A prophecy. A villain. A darkening sky.

A poet who spun the story into ballad and verse, told with the cadence of a fairytale.

A connection that continued to thrum even when long severed.

A wish made over and over.


	13. epilogue

The old crone intoned the last word on the page of the gilded storybook and snapped it shut decisively. A plume of dust rose up from the book, and the child perched in the woman’s bony lap unleashed an almighty sneeze, inspiring a chorus of giggles from those that gathered at her feet.

A crackling fire roared in the hearth and colorful tapestries swayed on the walls. The children were scrubbed pink and still damp from a recent bath, and evening light swept golden across the floor.

“Another,” insisted one of the little ones, tugging at the old woman’s skirts. She was scrawny and freckled and boyish, and the crone patted her head with an open hand.

“Tomorrow,” said a woman holding a baby. “Mama has somewhere to be today. And I’m sure that she’s very tired.”

“Yes,” croaked the old crone. She motioned with sweeping hands, bony wrists flapping, and the littlest girl in her lap slipped down to join the others. When she stood, heavy skirts sweeping to the floor, it was with stooped posture, hunched by the twist of her spine. She was not much taller than the oldest child, who helped her walk to the door of the room with a hand on her wrinkled arm.

The old crone accepted the help to the threshold and patted the child’s cheek in thanks. She did not truly need the assistance but had learned long ago that help offered said more about the offerer than the recipient.

These were orphans of war and famine and circumstance. Broken, starving things plucked up from the brink of death. Afterimages. Flotsam.

That they rose from that suffering still knowing warmth and kindness was motivation enough to allow brief weakness.

The door opened to a narrow passageway, which the old woman walked down with a wobbling lurch of her step, hunched over the twisted cane in her grip, and then to a wider entryway with staircases up and down and then to another passage and a side door that she stepped through. She stood suddenly outdoors on a discreet path lined with a fragrant hedge of roses.

The old crone straightened her hunched back and shifted and dissolved.

Her hair spilled from its braids and went inky black, some thick streaks of silver remaining along her crown. Her spine un-twisted, the blue veins faded from her arms, her drooping jowls tightened to a smooth complexion, and the wrinkles on her face shrank to a faint hint of crow’s feet, a small crease of laugh lines. The twisted cane popped out of existence entirely.

Yennefer walked with an easy, swinging gait up the hedged in path and climbed a flight of stairs built into a hillside to emerge onto the road.

Before her, the grit of a wide path curled up through sweeping pastureland toward an impressive manor house built on the very cusp of a hill. Its facade was all white pillars and balconies and faded brick, and it had just begun to glow orange as the setting sun touched the summit of the hill.

Behind her, the orphanage sat just off the road in a green depression swathed in gardens, a wide and squat building large enough to house and school dozens of children. A freshly-painted sign that hung before the ornate front doors designated it simply ‘the Lettenhove House’.

Yennefer adjusted her skirts and strode up the tree-lined road that meandered its way up the hill. The pasture fence dipped close to it here and there, and she paused a while to lean against the fenceline and watch the lush grasses and meadow flowers sway.

In the distance, someone was whistling.

She watched a familiar figure emerge from behind a copse of trees in the pasture, followed closely by a gaggle of young horses who nipped at his sleeves and attempted to nab mouthfuls from the pail of grain he carried. One of the gangly, ugly things even dared to grab his white ponytail and tug, and the figure quieted his whistling to scold the weanling, bopping him with surprising gentleness on the whiskered nose.

Yennefer followed the fenceline to a smaller paddock where the man who had once been a Witcher divied up his pail of grain scoop by scoop into individual buckets for each young horse. He stood a moment with his hand on the crest of a young filly’s mane as she chomped on her evening meal and then turned to lock eyes with Yennefer.

Geralt looked the same as he always had, perhaps more lined now, more weathered. He still dressed in black, but there were no swords strapped at his back, no armor, and his old medallion was tucked underneath the collar of his shirt. A keepsake more than anything.

He stepped through a gate and closed it snugly behind him to meet her on the road.

“How are they?” he asked.

“As good as to be expected. Time heals some but not all,” she said. “Why don’t you go and visit? See for yourself.”

“Better with the horses,” he said with a shake of his head. “One tortured orphan child is enough for a lifetime.”

“I know,” said Yennefer. “That’s why I never visit looking like this.”

His gait hitched with a limp, a mark of the shattered hip that had ended his life as a monster hunter. He kept a quaint cottage in the back pasture and managed the estate stables, occupying his time breeding sound and reasonable work and riding horses. Many were direct descendants of his own retired Witcher mares.

“What have you named this crop after, then?” asked Yennefer, stroking the neck of a particularly ugly piebald colt who stood close to the fenceline. He may grow out of his hideous swan neck and pot belly and pointed hip, but she could not say. She only appreciated horses from a distance, not quite understanding what Geralt saw in the flighty, bumbling creatures, so quick to snap limbs and fall ill and waste to nothing.

“Insects? Amphibians? Maybe varieties of grapes? Gods know there’s enough of those I can never keep straight.”

“This is River,” said the man who was once a Witcher, scratching the black and white wither. “Scrawny red one’s Gully. Bigger red one’s Cliff. Black one with a blaze is Delta. And that’s Bay.”

He pointed last at a bright bay filly busy munching on her dinner. A bay called bay. How clever.

“Ah, landforms. Mostly horrible choices, as always.”

“I aim to impress.”

“Come now,” said Yennefer. “We have a funeral to attend.”

The trees along the winding road gave way to more untamed meadow that abruptly shifted to neat lawn interspersed with rows and rows of curling grape vines. The vineyard stretched right to the gleaming front stairs and white pillars of the manor house and continued on across the spread of hills beyond.

The sprawling estate in Kerack had been in the Lettenhove family for centuries, though had not seen consistent occupants until a decade or so ago, when settling down on the coast had at last seemed like a very reasonable option.

The two of them, two figures in black, could be seen from a long way off from nearly any window or balcony in the house.

A man sat reclined on a wicker chair on the pillared front porch, head tipped back as he pressed the curve of a pipe to his lips and puffed ringlets of smoke. His tousled hair was equal parts chestnut and silver, his tufts of facial hair neatly-oiled into a ridiculous, swirling moustache and pointed goatee. His clothing was uncharacteristically subdued, swathed in kohl from head to toe, a beret with attached veil of black lace lowered dramatically over one of his eyes.

He did not cut much of a somber figure with heels kicked up and legs crossed on the white railing, puffing away at the pipe.

Yennefer knew he must have seen them coming up the road, but he waited for the sheer drama of the lengthy pause until they had drawn closer to the house, waited until they stopped below the reaching shade of a pair of stone fruit trees that lined the front walk to acknowledge them.

“You’re late!” Jaskier said at last and leapt to his feet, the pipe set with a clack down on the railing of the porch. “The nerve of you. My invitations were very clear.”

“He’s dead, how late can we be?”

The poet feigned an offended squawk.

“The disrespect!”

“The man was nearly ninety-five. His death isn’t exactly a surprise.”

“And he died,” said Jaskier with a glint of his eyes and a knowing wag of his finger, “of apoplexy.”

“Mmhmm,” hummed Yennefer as she began to climb the front stairs. “Very fulfilling. Age-old prophecy. Whatever. You promised wine.”

“This is a vineyard, Yen. That you own,” said Geralt. “When isn’t there wine?”

“Hush,” said Jaskier and turned neatly on his heels to lead them through the house.

The inside of the manor house stood mostly silent, her heels clacking on the wooden floors as she strode from the front to the back of the building. The windowed backdoor opened onto a lawn bustling with activity and noise, white tablecloths fluttering in the evening breeze on tables laden with food and drink, people dancing and standing in clusters to talk and crowding around the banquet tables, fairy lights strung above the back lawn twinkling in anticipation of the coming dusk.

“This doesn’t look much like a funeral, Jaskier,” said Geralt.

“It’s a celebration of life!” exclaimed Jaskier as he swept down the stairs and flung his arms wide to greet a crowd that shouted cheerily in response.

As Yennefer followed the idiot to meld into the party, she greeted familiar faces here and there, touching their arms and apologizing for the ridiculous premise of such an occasion. The guests spanned every rung of the social ladder, from musicians to nobles to artisans to farmers to tradesmen to merchants and even those in the employ of the estate who tended the vineyard and grounds and stables and house, their duties set aside for the night to imbibe some of the literal fruits of their labor.

She had personally brought a bottle this afternoon for the women who manned the orphanage.

Not far away, she caught sight of Cirilla engaged in an arm wrestling match with a burly man who she appeared to be besting, an exuberant crowd jostling them and pounding their backs. Yennefer had not seen her in several months and was glad to see her daughter healthy and well but knew better than to approach the rowdy gathering.

The night was young. There would be time.

A similar crowd surrounded Jaskier as he personally began to pour fresh cups of wine from a massive cask, intent on leading those gathered around him in a toast.

“To Valdo Marx!” he said as he raised a silver chalice, red wine slopping over the edge and wetting the grass beneath his feet. “Who last week suffered a sudden stroke in his sleep and died alone in bed. May he sink into the annals of history with little fanfare!”

The drunken crowd tipped their own mugs up in an echo of the toast to the late minstrel with only a small measure of confused frowning. With copious amounts of free drink, most were willing to allow the eccentricities of their host to slide.

At her shoulder, Geralt nudged her to offer an overflowing goblet, and she took it gratefully, needing to be far, far less sober to endure the evening. It helped that, aided with a bit of magic and some good luck, their vineyard produced a very fine vintage indeed.

“Not sure that you’re aware,” he said dryly, “but your husband’s a fucking idiot.”

Yennefer pressed her hand to her chest in a mockery of wide-eyed surprise.

The party, despite its bizarre and probably offensive inspiration, was a success. All of Jaskier’s parties were. He was a natural people pleaser, a meeter of needs, a showman and a show-off and a spectacle. He basked under the spotlight, thrived in the awed attention of the crowd, perhaps spinning into an impromptu performance or poetry recitation, telling stories with the swing of his arms, laughing bright and loud at the very center of it all.

Even so, she knew that it would not be long before he sought her out along the outskirts of the gathering.

It was her attention, after all, that he held in highest regard.

He approached with relaxed posture, grinning, his doublet long unbuttoned and dark beret askew.

Streams of dying sunlight reddened the face of the manor house behind him. Yennefer held out a hand before her that the ridiculous man caught and grasped tight in his own. He stooped to press a dry kiss to the knuckle of her littlest finger.

“Hello,” he said, breathless from his dancing and cavorting. He was no longer a young man but thanks to the non-human influence in the Lettenhove family tree could very well live another hundred years or more.

“Hello,” echoed Yennefer.

“I would request a dance or two,” said the poet, “if the lady so chooses.”

She moved easily after him and onto the dance floor, where they swung together in slow circles among the other couples on the lawn. They swapped smoothly between leading and being led, anticipating the movements of the other a moment before and leaning into the seamless shift.

The song ended with a last squeak of stringed instruments, and Jaskier stepped back to look at her at arm’s length, their hands clasped together in front of them.

His eyes took on a sudden glitter of mischief, and with a quick, conspiratorial grin, he spun on his heels and bolted, tugging her along by a hand toward the manor house.

She followed at speed, despite being far, far too old for such nonsense, and hoisted her skirts to climb the back stairs. Rather than duck inside the arched doorway, he turned onto the porch that wrapped around the exterior of the house. A half-full moon rose steadily over the darkened vineyard, and they slipped together through the slanting shadows of smooth pillars and pools of moonlight.

Already out of breath and growing tired of running in heels, she spun and pulled him into the shadow of a pillar. He laughed in delight and hoisted himself onto the railing, legs dangling, and it was easy to press close between his spread thighs and kiss him, stupid curled moustache and all.

When she pulled away, his face was doing that dopey, twitchy thing it did sometimes. Following an impulse she had resisted all night, she snatched the black, veiled beret from his head and tossed it out into the dark of the lawn, hopefully never to be seen again.

At his whine of protest, she tutted and kissed him again.

“It’s in poor taste,” said Yennefer, “celebrating a man’s death.”

“Even if said man was a massive cock? Anyway it’s not about Valdo,” he said. “Not really… ok, ok don’t look at me like that, _of course_ , it’s about him, that old cock.”

“Speaking endlessly of his cock does not convince me that this is not about Valdo.”

“I wished for this to happen,” said Jaskier. His fingertips trailed under her jaw. He was looking at her with a dazed sort of awestruck wonder. She knew the look well. “It was one of my wishes. One of three.”

“Jaskier, wishing for a man’s death is _not_ romantic.”

“But it is! Oh, it is, don’t you get it?”

“Not really.”

“Yennefer, my love,” breathed the poet, “did you ever get what you wanted?”

And he knew the answer, the absolute brat, of course he knew it, even as he leaned to kiss her again, deep and slow, and did not wait for her to say _yes_.

The space to choose freely was all she could ever want, and Yennefer chose him with each in-drawn breath, again and again and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... did you think I was kidding when I said 100k slow burn enemies to lovers mutual pining fic? DID YOU?
> 
> and there you have it!! yennskier got their exactly 100k slow burn and now I can go lie down for a long while. ao3's word counter really tried to play me at the end there. It really did...
> 
> Thank you dearly to everyone who has been along for the journey and everyone yet to read this thing. I have had a better time writing this than any other fic and possibly anything else I've ever written, but also, it's been a very long few months and I'm ready for it to be doneeeee.
> 
> Apologies for the unbeta-ed mess of this inconsistent fic lmao 
> 
> follow me on tumblr @limerental


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